


Valeska

by InsomniaRiot



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Drugs Made Them Do It, Erotic Games, F/M, Possessive Behavior, Romance, Rough Sex, Suspense, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:37:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsomniaRiot/pseuds/InsomniaRiot
Summary: [ATTENTION! VERY SLOW UPDATES] Jerome Valeska is a nightmare Gotham's that everyone tries to survive. Busy from the chaos that keeps the GCPD awake, it turns out to be your job as a hitman to bring peace. But your victim is not just hard to kill, he has something that fascinates you. With this, a slow killing process starts. A job that seems like an unknown wish, while Valeska shows a seconds face that looks like the first one. Do you choose madness or insanity? [Jerome x Fem. Reader x Jeremiah]





	1. Request

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Valeska](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/500284) by Hellgate. 



> Note:  
> This is literally the first fiction I am translating myself. Normally I'm choosing the lazy way of doing this, but this Story is very dear to me, so I hope you like it.  
> Don't like spoilers? Then you shouldn't read this fiction if you haven't watched the fourth season.  
> On some edges, the story will collide with the story we know from the show but I have to say, that I changed them here and there to fit in this idea.  
> At this point: Have fun! And maybe follow me on my Twitter, I'm new there: https://twitter.com/CinnabarQuinn
> 
> Disclaimer:  
> I own just the idea. The rest belongs it's rightful owners (except some few ones).

**○○ All heroes are broken beyond repair.**  
**All villains are just heroes who chose truth over dare. ○○**

Thick smoke from way too expensive cigars reaches you and you know that one more human life will meet its end. That's how it always is when you set foot in this room in which your boss welcomes mad voices and secret seductions on the telephone. Standing on the sides are waiting guardians, tired looks behind dark glasses, distorted faces behind wrong seriousness. That's the way you see it, always again when you come back because you have to.  
Your eyes stop at the sign of the man on the other side of the room. Blonde hair, empty eyes, wide shoulders under a cheap jacket even though he could buy so much more. Nobody knows what he does with the money that he gets. He pays his dogs, that's something you know since you're one of them.  
“At your service.” Your voice sounds sharp, bites through long breaths and forgotten ideas just to wait on the side of the daydreams from the men in this room. It makes the atmosphere heavy, perfect for a bunch of murderers. “What can I do for you?”  
His attention reaches you just in this seconds, leaves the feeling that it doesn't exist and fills the corners in the same moment. With something to smoke in his hands, a small line of burned nicotine reaching the air from the barely burning top and twenty seconds that you give this scene before it dies down. There is no change in it. You just enter this room and your boss keeps this cigar, that he lit up but never brought to his lips, between his fingers. He just likes the pungent smell of hot vanilla in a place where the windows are always closed.  
So that the dirty air stays outside.  
So that Gotham stays outside. And you can't argue with that.  
“I have a mission for you,” he says, tells the obvious because the formal things in his mind are thicker than blood and because he searches order in his messy live. “It won't take long.”  
You nod slowly and understanding, even when it has no worth in his eyes if you understand or not. This is something you know but you do it anyway because it's in your routine. Like killing. Two things that keep you more alive than the blood in your veins: _The routine and sparkling blades full of blood because it wakes your body and shows you, that nothing lasts forever._  
“Your new victim is someone the leaders of Gotham want to see dead. The pay is good... It is really good.” Your opposite breaks the silence, lets the air in your ears whir. He sounds normal, less like a man who has seen power in the hands of lost souls. As if he just doesn't care. He turns his back to you, looks trough the dirty glass of the windows with a strange view on the world outside. “I already accepted the job in your name. There is no time frame. If he dies it's enough.”  
“And what's his name?”  
“Jerome Valeska.” A heavy tone in his voice, maybe a silent question behind it that you don't understand. “Crazy in its saddest state, forgotten from the world that he wants to entertain so that the whole attention is lying on him. Clever this child Gotham's. This town has invited a new player on the table of murderers and maniacs. Revise this mistake.”  
“Of course, Mister Halmond.”  
  
You wait, just for a few seconds because there is always this little possibility for more. Time stays in this place, silently moving on while the ticking simply doesn't exist. Frozen faces, past stories, not a single movement. Nothing than the picture in front of you changes. The cigar disappeared, the smoke died down and your boss is standing in front of this window – lost in Gotham's sight.  
Turning on the landing with a quick move you dare to breathe in. The door that will bring you back to the silent chaos in dirty business is open, was never closed. Your thoughts are attached to the job from which you know that you will manage it. Loosing is not on your agenda because you're not allowed to mess up. You never were. And you breathe out.  
You start to follow the showy carpet with long steps, out of those walls full of quiet questions, to the floor – a home of nostalgic pictures without love. They pass beside you in a row while your thoughts are searching for a plan, full of vanilla that stays deep in your clothes. Normally you tend to kill people the way they lived. Sometimes surrounded by liquor bottles who mostly turn tired souls into embittered decisions. More often you leave a grave of medication, filled in injections whose needles are already rusting. They greeting death rarely in the arms of a loved one because nobody in this town is able to love. Lovely affection is just a dream that turns into a twisted fact until the end, where everyone recognizes that it was just a wish for something else than the grey facades and flickering street lights. They all want something different than Gotham but nevertheless, they are living in this final destination where dreams embody the shards to death.  
Even you have heard from Jerome. You watched how he died and you heard from the strange way he survived it. He searches for entertainment and wants to see the dancers of his show burn. A game of the crazy because there are no rules in their universe and because the truth is laughing about them. You can understand it because you've seen the dark alleys and crying children too. Everything on the world seems like a bad joke in the light of reality. Everyone is speaking about someone, mean words, lies, unknown opinions without permission. In the very same moment, they attack others, physical, psychical. Is there no reason to do so people just create one. Between left friends, broken relationships and wrong smiles with the lie that everything is just fine, there always exists enough space to lose the right mind. Everyone has those days. Some get over it, others choke on it. People like Jerome find a line in the middle but tend to go too far in a town where nobody can go far enough. If you have to destroy this behaviour then it has to be with a game. One that makes you sigh so that you can feel your warm breath on your lips.  
_You have absolutely no idea what kind of game it should be._  
  
While your steps crawl over the walls, because the light on the ceiling is annoyingly unstable, you aim for the stairs downward. You don't even think about taking the lift, want to decide for yourself when you go and when you stop. It's the same wish to decide that gives you the idea of asking for help. There is no way to kill Jerome in a nice manner if you're alone.  
The sole of your shoes echoes on the way down because the carpet here was replaced with marble and because there is just this small railing. The Echo pushes against the walls, touches your ears in every breath in which you can hear your heart beating. It isn't special. In no way. And it passes by without any reaction from your side. There is no reason to feel more than the muffled freedom within a cage from which you all just look but find no way out.  
You ignore the tone of your steps, prefer to think about Alva who could help you. Maybe. She's living in this place way longer than you. At least you like to think this way, mostly while you watch her playing with lives and patching up criminals. As a doctor of the “ _underworld_ ”, she knows what she does. Most of the time she even knows it more than you and she's never at a loss of ideas for a killing that looks like art. Just to have those fantasies she's having her basement at the bottom of the building, far away from the sight of others. The way down there is filled with steps, cold words and dead eyes. Alva collects them. She's collecting eyeballs in big bottles so that the way down to her door doesn't feel lonely. And with the hope that the work of others will be seen by more than one person.  
You feel the hostile looks on your skin, the strange feeling to be watched and judged. Normally nobody looks at you. On the outside, you are an absolutely normal human being on the streets of this town. Of course, it's uncomfortable when your transparent state changes.  
Nobody should be able to see a shadow.  
  
Reaching the bottom you wait on the last step, breathing in because the picture behind the door in front of you will never be normal. Alva is a person who likes to be between corpses and cut up limbs. She counts to the people who see the beauty in the abstruse and hope in Gotham. In her world is enough space for a “ _between_ ” while all the other people think about “ _all or nothing_ ”. Maybe she is optimism in its most scattered form.  
One of your hands touches the cold metal handle which separates you from the World behind the mind. Your visits are often but stepping inside is still a hurdle. Every time. The cold reaches through your hand to the bones, the wish to just turn around lays soft an arm around your shoulders. Nevertheless, you open the door.  
With a smooth move, a room full of muffled love and the smell of sweet blood with antiseptic opens to you. White tiles on the walls, white linoleum to your feet, glaring light on the ceiling and red swabs in between. Countless bowls find a place on steady tables, guts in glass bottles a home in a shelf. Documents and files are scattering their black letters on a chair, under a dead body, on places where they don't belong. Alva stopped caring a long time ago, ignores the chaos, works happily on her projects. For a moment you watch her, observe how she pulls long strings through the soft flesh of a tongue. Her patient is dead, there is just a little bit blood left inside him but you somehow still believe to hear his unsteady breathing. One time this feeling is interrupted by a clink, coming from a needle which collides with a key. With that, the picture turns into a whole. She is sewing a key into the tongue of this corpse for a game that she's going to play after this. You don't know what she is planning in detail but you know that this isn't the first time.

“Do you want to help or are you just here to put your eyes in my collection?”  
Alva brings you out of your observation, let's your attention freeze on her body. Tangled hair, black as night, standing in every direction while being bound into a tail that she never opens. The cigarette in the corner of her mouth has gone out, tells you that she forgot it. Between a scalpel and cotton swabs, her orange nails are shining. They don't match with the black-white dotted dress that she always wears. Even in this place, the time seems to find a halt, makes everything fragile at the same moment.  
“I have a new mission,” you say, standing at one point not moving.  
“And because of that, you are visiting me? I'm happy I think.”  
“My victim is Jerome Valeska. I could need some help for a fitting death.” You slowly lean toward the wall, forget about the bottles and watch how Alva is looking at you. She always does things like that because she still believes that you have a heart. There is something inside of her that hopes that one day you will just leave this business. But you learned to control your feelings inside these walls, to show a simple smile because it is easier.  
“Jerome... Jerome... The living dead one?” She asks even though she knows the answer. “How interesting. I don't think you can use my new work for this. I just have no idea what this Valeska boy could do with a corpse in which tongue I put a key for the safe of the mayor.”  
“And between all that I have no idea how that should kill him,” you sigh because it's true and because Alva tends to be a hand full from time to time.  
“That's true. We need a new idea. I can think about something... Maybe a game between heavy walls and locked windows would be the right thing. The one who is still standing in the end wins, I think.”  
“A show. A performance how he does with others when he wants to. That sounds fair.”  
“It's thrilling.” Instructively she raises her bony finger, seems more dead than alive at this moment and with that like a perfect fit for this town. “Let's see how this works out.”  
“Thank you.”  
  
You don't let time pass, don't wait to go out of this room and to close the door. Alva is in a better company when she's alone. You like this distance that you two have. The bottles with their fillings who have a steady place in the walls seem to look back at you. Piercing like daggers on naked skin, between fault and accusation, this false overlooking follows you to the floor where the entrance seems inviting and the light pure.  
It doesn't need much overthinking to know what you going to do now. The idea of a little game found a place in your head. Jerome and some chosen souls will take place, won't find a way out if you don't want it. Maybe you even go to take place yourself. To observe it, to control it and pull the strings in the back. This is the reason why you go ahead with safe feeling steps because you have no time for something else. The longer you need, the more moments full of mistakes will pass.  
Your hands push against the wooden frame of the entrance, find a way out of the building. The soles of your shoes tap on stone, heavy air surrounds you and the everlasting noise of driving cars combined with annoyed people breaths some life into your home.  
The thick concrete of the roads is wet, uneven, seems darker in contrast to the empty house-walls which reach high to the sky. Close to each other without leaving space for anyone – that's how it is with buildings, cars, sometimes even people. The one breathes in what the other breathes out and everybody seems used to it. Maybe because this town needs help.  
In this town, heroes fall and the darkness represses the light. The strongest seem painfully weak in the eyes of corruption which craziness eats up the streets. The innocent are found guilty and the brave disappear in the shadows of their fear. The hunters start to be targeted. If children tend to be victims and every optimist loses hope, then they reached this place.  
Then they reached Gotham.  
A town in which every exit brings you back to the entrance.


	2. You're not the worst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You start to get your information together. Good luck! And help where you can!

Damp air between dirty waste gas, unpleasant in this time of the year in which normal human beings enjoy the late sunbeams of the beginning of autumn. Just not here.  
In Gotham, the good days are the dry ones, when the sidewalk isn't paved with dead bodies. Or blood. Or munition from bad solved conflicts.  
You buried your hands in the pockets of your jacket, collecting the heat which stays there. In front of you a crowd of people, somewhere on their way to work and back. Your eyes search for something. Smoke lifts from some windows, blends itself with petrol air and oil, and somewhere burned fat. A snack car stands half on the pavement without getting punishment because it feeds the police. Those are the typical impressions, known pictures. Cold facades and banal lies between which life melts away.  
For you, as a contract killer, it's important to seem like the rest. Fit your surroundings. Don't attract attention, don't stare. Just look over the place and hear your heart beating evenly. _Breath in._ Don't think about the smell which settles down in your clothes. _Breath out.  
_ Only the thin fog close to the ground holds your attention, distracts you. Just for one instant, you decide to look at it. Purely white, deceptive clean as if there would be less gum-paper and cigarette ends – less dirt.  
The sight disgusts you as much as it fascinates you, brings your eyes back to the snack car where you finally stop. A routine like every day. The offers are small and the selection modest but it's enough to fill the stomach. That's why your mouth angles scurry up. Being friendly is important. It helps others to forget after you told your order which didn't change in the last three years. At the same time, you dig the money out of your pocket. It strums, catches your attention and is enough to pay the bill.  
The voice of the vendor sounds as greasy as always when he thanks you. It shows you clearly that his day will pass like every other one. Getting up, eating breakfast, standing in front of a day with hopes that again the law will look in another direction. Approximately it's the way you live too. But you still have to sharpen the knives, clean pistols just to believe that Gotham will find peace one day. If you really want that you don't know. But you believe it anyway. It's no secret that this thought is just wishful thinking and that you forget it as soon as you open the dirty windows to greet the town in silence. Sad repression of childish wishes.  
Your way continues, leads you past coats and unfitting jewellery. The goal is the news stall like every day because it is Gotham in one look and because you like to stare on the articles. Meanwhile, you nibble on your foot, feel the heat on your lips, on your skin. With that the weather seems even colder than it already is, fitting for the people in their everyday life without right and mercy. One can just accept it, you know that and you do it. You don't care about it any more because you gave up on this town and at the same time you want to keep it even when it won't change. The news stall makes the picture even stronger.  
Your fingers feel the rough paper of the first exemplar on the top of the staple. Cool papers on the tips, printed with thick black letters which turn the first page into an intrusive call for help. They report a gun battle, someone got lost, the crazy keep the _GCPD_ running and everyone is turning around in circles. The daily news seems to never change because the big plans need time to find a halt on smudged ways made of black ice. Petty criminals search for the money they believe to find somewhere in this system. Power seems out of interest. Maybe because they know that nobody can control Gotham. The big ways are just for the insane in this pool of killers which like to send each other charming death letters.  
Even that isn't new any more.  
  
A silent sight comes over your lips, makes the breath through the food unusual hot. A memory that you have to find Jerome. A young man who stays everywhere and nowhere. That's the reason why you leave the newspaper behind and start moving again, staying near the house facades so that you can vanish unseen in one alley. A passage with few people because everyone hangs on life. Between the mouldiness of the walls and the rust of some fire-escapes can happen too much. Between the fear to get crushed by those feelings, some are afraid to greet death. The victims here are way too often children of these streets, crushed by life, shot by munition that nobody can hear. At least they all act like they can't because it's easier to hear away than risk their own life.  
Your steps echo, climb up the outside walls and fall silent somewhere distant where you can't hear them any more. The goosebumps remain. At the same time, it leads you out on the other side, moves the thick columns of a bridge in your view. This place is the home of the homeless. That's something they believe and you do too.  
Homeless keep their eyes open when other people don't because their lives depend on it. And maybe because it's everything that's left for them on these cobblestones and stinking mattresses. Information means money and that on the other side means alcohol to make the cold nights feel warm. Those things make these people the best option if someone needs anything.  
Shortly your eyes turn left, then right before you cross the street. Pulling up the shoulders a little because the weather licks over your neck and every breeze pulls on your hair. On the other side, waiting men and women, forgotten from the masses, who surround a burning shopping cart. They warm up their crooked fingers by the flames, remain silent because speaking makes thirsty and the stocks here are limited. You get slower the closer you get. The rest of your lunch that you somehow can't taste disappears in your mouth. Then you stop without getting closer. Forsaken ones don't speak when they are in groups because nobody wants to tell the others what he knows. It's harmful to do so. A problem made in seconds.  
Just this place is left with some limited points and a few individuals who don't believe in the warmth of the fire any more. Under them a middle-aged woman. Deep furrows on dry skin, traces of time on the face, the hands. She is the target.  
  
“Excuse me,” you say. Your counterpart is a human too, deserves some respect. “I have a question.”  
“Go away,” she replies briskly, looks disapproving and awfully averse. That's how it often is because the nice tone seems terribly wrong between broken souls.  
“Do you maybe know where I can find Jerome Valeska?”  
“Holy crap, no! Piss of.”  
Asking more than necessary counts to the few things you avoid. To do what she wants is easier, finding a new target too. A man, stunted by life, alcohol and hope. He leans on a column and tries not to freeze in his holey sweatshirt.  
“Excuse me. Did you maybe hear something about Jerome Valeska?”  
Silence. With a silent sigh, you kneel and try to get a better look from your counterpart. His eyes are glassy, lost in another world which exists only in his head. He survives in a dying way and you know that you can't wake him. Because it would kill him. On the spot.  
“Valeska?”  
Somebody speaks to you while you slowly get up. Again you sigh, roll your eyes. Your position stays bent. Most of the time it's not helpful if somebody comes to you out of free will because many try their luck with information that's absolutely useless. For a few seconds, there is the question of which reaction you should give this stranger. In the end, you decide on a neutral mien. “Yes, Jerome Valeska.”  
“I know where he stayed the last time I saw him,” says your new interlocutor and shows off gums without teeth. It's a man. His shaky voice and the body hidden behind countless clothes fitting for winter tell you this much.  
“And this is where?”  
“Well, you need to pay me for this information. Let's say...fifty bucks.”  
“Hundred if you first give me the answer and it shows off to be a good one.” You have enough money. Mister Halmond did everything for that and you did too. It's not even important so that it's no problem to pay more if the jobs end successfully this way. His hands are shaking, he swallows dry. When he starts speaking it's so fast that he tangles in his own words.  
“I ha-have seen him not long ago. Yes, I have! H-He hid in a former ho-hotel... The..the...Andalaz. I-I think they want to leave it soon.”  
“I see,” you murmur silent, more to yourself than to your counterpart. Every normal human would want to leave the former Andalaz someday. Over the years this house dilapidated into something that reminds more of a rat hole than a habitation. That Jerome finds a hideout in this place explains why the police can't find him.  
Normally he has a propensity for the noble lodgings. He will stay truthful to that, that's no question but he still seems to search for a fitting place. Good for you. It's a helpful clue, you have to admit that. That's why it's worth the investment when you grab into your pocket and pull out a hundred dollar bill to give him. Right after that the scenario lies behind you and stays there while you head back. Back to Alva to look if she already had an idea to turn this job into art.  
  
Again the alleys of this town pass you, sunk in breaking sunbeams which fall trough thick clouds in the sky. It feels good to know what to do. Like a new piece in a puzzle that slowly turns into a picture. If all pieces are on the right place Jerome dies.  
You recognize your trot, the fast walk of your legs. The pulse pumps the blood faster through the veins and lets you wheeze because the heavy air hardly reaches your lungs. Until the food carts which still stands half on the pavement. The newspaper on the stand has hardly decreased.  
For an instant, you just breathe in, notice the smell of fast food stronger than before. The mass of humans has diminished, is stuck to the neck in work. The newly arisen silence which still isn't comforting but less rushing lies down over the districts of the town, cradle it in wrong safety. Somewhere could explode a bomb in this very moment and the GCPD would just cry out because they are asked too much of. There is work in every corner and that's the reason why you do what you do. Kill to make the town a little bit better.  
As if it would be of no concern your shoulders twitch before you decide to go on. At the same time, you can hear a scream, a cry for help. Shortly you look over your shoulders, looking for the reason. A young girl without any knowledge of the streets and even less educated in stealing runs in your direction, with a handbag in her hands. A nearly typical scenario which seems just annoying. But you aren't a monster. There is a heart in your chest and you still own somewhat that seems like a sense of justice. That's the reason why you look back in front of you. You wait, feel how this thief comes closer. A tingle on your skin, such a good feeling and a warning. With every second it gets stronger, lies icy claws around your throat and steals your breath. That always happens. In danger, in attacks from behind. A blessing like you think.  
The wait continues. A few seconds in which the heart beats faster. You ignore the wish to look back and start to count down the last five seconds. Always knowingly breathing. Then you reach to the side in the middle of nothing, somehow just in time to catch one strap of the handbag. You stand stays firm so that the girl loses halt and stagger back by the backfiring momentum. She is dirty, maybe hungry and steals to somehow survive. But even then the rules of the strongest counts and she was clearly not prepared for this foray. This is her punishment.  
Just one step aside and the bag finds out of her hands. She, on the other side, manages to find a footing. A short look to her, eyes full of hate because you're better off than her. But she can read this situation and uses her intellect to start running away again. Without the stolen goods but with a life. With some luck, she will get a new chance. Like a new day which keeps her alive.  
  
You look after her while holding the leather in your hands, believing in the good deed seconds ago. Behind you, a round woman stops, wheeze heavily, a little disgusting. You give her back the bag while holding the distance. She shouldn't come closer to disgust you even more. A tight cloud of perfume and sweat surrounds you, mixed with fumes and smoke. Her body is plugged in a way to small dress which seams stretch dangerously. It makes you wonder when they will tear. She breaths out vodka, you can smell it but you still smile because you don't know what else to do.  
“Why did you let that brat get away? She robbed me!” The first words from her are bicker, exhausting because her breath is now enough to make place for her dissatisfaction.  
“At least I could safe your bag,” you say way to nice with pressed voice. The bad mood should just go by because you aren't the bad one and there is no sense to go further than you have to.  
“Thank you! Really. Couldn't you have just held that girl in this place?”  
“Couldn't you have just run faster?”  
“What?” She wheezes like a bull, scrapes with the low heels of the shoes on her feet as if she is trying to take somebody on. Instead, she just shakes her head and with this oily blonde hair. Then she takes back her bag and just stomps past. You offended her because she was so slow. There was no way for her to go faster. Not with this restricting dress with the wrong size. And not with those shoes which heels nearly break under the weight.  
You absolutely offended her and you did it with pleasure.  
With the eyes, you follow this unknown woman a little longer, watch how she gets away somehow. Just for a moment, there stays this true smile on your lips because she counts to those people which show the best side of Gotham. It's funny. A little. And it satisfies you because you did something that made the day a little better without killing someone. True effort because you aren't a bad human. Not in your eyes and not in the eyes of your boss. At least you believe that. Something you have to keep because right after it awaits boredom and indifference. Both are present. Not one of them will go away.  
You can just outplay it.


	3. Getting ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to visit a devil in the bar and to get more information about Jerome. While that, keep in mind, that Alva is waiting for results.

You're hesitating again. The hand lies on the doorknob which leads straight into the world of the dead and players and you just can't bring yourself to open it. Cold gazes on your skin, forgotten souls in bottles where everyone can see them – naked and unprotected, fully exposed. Extremely disgusting and at the same time oppressive so that the air on your lips seems bitterly flat. A deep breath in, feeling unwell.  
The eyes fixed on the passage, you want to believe in solutions behind corpses and blood. Maybe not the best idea, there are certainly better ways, but not a single one seems tangible. Something else than Alva was always out of question and at the same time it wasn't. Standing between two sides you always choose the easiest that seems way harder when you look up close. Behind this door waiting are pictures of impossible habits. On some days the view seems more suffocating than on others. But there is no way to escape so that your only chance is to open the door, followed by a harsh breath in of heavy air.  
The smell of blood vanished, leaves just bitter medicine. Alva sits on her table, threw the paper on the chair to the ground and is concentrating on some new files. Maybe new researches. She has enough of those, too many which she wants to make real. She is crazy to believe that she's able to build a world of mutants – one day if the economy breaks down and the human lives are getting worthless. At the same time, she is too good-hearted because she's working on experiments to bring health to a new level. She combines both sides in her body, found the thin middle but never goes obviously too far. Just in secret, if nobody is watching. While she goes insane and digs the eyes of somebody out with a spoon because she fell in love with the gaze and fell for the colour.  
Attentive you watch her, careful from top to bottom. Terrible unkempt, horribly deep down in work, never sleeping but always half asleep. She is the best choice and you learn that every time you visit her. Somehow, because she's like Gotham.

“Always the same.” Grumbling, Alva tilts her head, speaks into the room, speaks to you even though she's not looking at you. “You come in and stare at me. One day I'm going to pick out your eyes and I won't save them in a bottle of memories and love. I'm going to throw them away.”  
“Mercy,” you mumble while your hands are rising automatically as if the simple defence would help. Fact is, you can't defend yourself from Alva. That's why you put your arms down and watch how she turns her head in your direction; as far as she can because she doesn't want to move the chair.  
“You're here because of your idea that is mine, I think. Am I right?”  
“You could say so.”  
“Well, I already gave you an idea. I can just help you to get it finished quick. After all, a survival game is a piece of education full of wrong decisions, I think.”  
“Could be,” you say, agreeing with her because she is right.  
“What's wrong?” Her voice sounds checking, testing, lets you swallow because it makes you nervous. Somehow her tone wakes uncertainty in you, anxiety which is not allowed to come out. Just a strong position and clear words underline that you try to be the opposite of this. You try to have confidence in the things you do.  
“I found out where Jerome hides,” you answer her, looking away from the black hair and study the room. “I'm going to visit that place to see how I can make him vanish. A fight would be bad.”  
“Good, okay!” Alva nods, recognizes the effort in your words as a beginning and lets the hand wander down to the knob of the drawer under the table. “In an emergency case, you can still kill him with those hands of yours.”  
It's a fair death you search for your victims but Alva brings up something extremely simple. Games aren't your biggest talent, fights are in the middle, surviving is the one thing you've learned in perfect detail. In the end, you would kill Jerome without a good plan if you have to because everything else failed. But you won't wish for that.  
Your eyes stare at the hands of Alva while she rummages in her compartment full of murder medications. Long fingers, remembering of the legs of a spider, dig like unstable threads through her belongings, catching something she pulls out. Two injections, a smile on her thin lips. They are limpid, unpredictable, seem deceptive empty but tempting because they could hold anything and nothing inside.  
“I think you will like this,” Alva says, doesn't turn into your direction because she is still too lazy to do so. She just holds the two injections over her shoulder. “Poison. Two minutes and your victim is dead. If Jerome plans to stay at home prick one of them in his ass. After that, you can bring him straight down to the grave.”  
A grin on your face, a nice idea but not the goal. She knows what she does, and she does it with so much serenity that it makes you a little more relaxed. In seconds like this, all the disturbing bottles and bloody stretchers seem nearly forgotten. That makes her likeable so that the “ _Thank you_ ” comes easily from your lips.  
“Does that mean you're going to catch him now? Wait and kill?” She continues asking because there is nothing better to do except watching at some notes and search for answers.  
“No, first I need to see Barbara. Even though I hate to admit it, she is the best one to get her hands on helpful information. Better ones than I get on the street. Of course, she doesn't care about Jerome's whereabouts, but she may be able to tell me if he has friends and who they are.”  
“Funny how you get told who to kill, but they always forget to mention how long the list behind all that is! That's pretty dumb, I think!” Hysterically pulling the arms in the air, Alva shakes her head. Even at this point, she's not totally wrong but that's how this work functions. There is always a professional so it's his task to find out the rest. In this case, it is your task. Normal people don't have to jump randomly into danger and the heads of Gotham wouldn't even think about doing something that could cost their lives. What's left are the known informants, such as Barbara Kean who tends to be unpleasant in her very own way. Nobody can dodge her gaze. Not even the darkest shadows on the streets hiding in the corners of house facades. She sees everyone and everything what makes her extremely valuable.  
“I will come back If I'm in need of something,” you break the rising silence, trying to get your thoughts away from the blonde who knows how to kill you with one look. A useless act because you turn right on the spot to get to the exit, knowing where you have to stop. Alva takes your words between all that with a wave. She seems like she doesn't care anymore about the operation. With that, your attention turns away, gets replaced by severity in the heart which seems like listlessness. The only nice part of this job is to kill, that's how it always has been. Everything else is more misery than freedom.

○○○

Magnificent is what makes Barbara. She lives showy under the wings of the underground where everyone can feel her on the skin but nobody knows how to find her. She is an artist in her way, turning things the way she wants them. This is fascinating and scary at the same time because nobody knows what her mind is planning next.  
She is the owner of the nightclub which once belonged Fish Mooney before someone ripped it out of her hands. Chaos between her and the umbrella holder, a tragedy which took place only once on the stony ways of drunken souls. But she doesn't let herself be killed. Whatever happens, somehow she always comes back, fitting Gotham as if she's a cornerstone in this town. Remarkable, you have to admit. But no help in this situation since your port of call isn't Mooney but Kean.  
The sympathy has its limits as you muster the facade of the club, left and forgotten, pushed from one to another. What one takes will be brought back to the beginning one day. The wheel spins without breaks because everyone in this town dies and is unable to die at the same time. Nobody passes away for the first time, not even when he's shoot with a dozen bullets. Except life was meaningless. If so, the town doesn't try to do a revival in its most horrible ways. That wasn't the case with Kean. Her life has meaning.  
Letting the shoulders relax you dare to breathe deeply, sort your words so that the concept behind them doesn't break into pieces. Then, one foot follows the other one, the honk from distant cars fade in the noise of the evening which stays on the Streets and occupies every space. You lay a hand on the cold steel, finding a grip, pull on it so that you can hear the click. Even though this place is closed the door is always open. Maybe because everyone knows that this club has way more to offer than cool drinks, stale air and blinking lights which turn every party into a surreal mosaic of alcohol and sweat. This is exactly the ambience that seems forcefully repulsive. It grosses you out because on the dance floor you mostly find people who think they are special. Shiny eyes in wrong beauty and among the lost souls who just want to dance to forget. So often in the company of soft laughter from encouraging drinks, long nights leave borders and the next day reaches tired over the town. Work calls. Freedom drowns. Nearly nobody comes to this place out of real fun.

You slip into the inner of the building, let go of the door, push the thoughts into a different corner and hear how the steel softly clicks back into the lock. What's left are darkness behind velvet light and beguiling colours to stimulate the mood. _Ultraviolet._  
The obtrusiveness at this hour hurts your head. The sting grows bigger, reaches trough your head, lets points dance in front of your eyes. They try to tell you how less you fit into this world. But you have to walk forward anyway, confident, with unstable steps because nausea gets more with every move you do. It is followed by pain. As if someone pushed a needle into your thumb, slowly and with care so that you can feel every centimetre. That's how you feel and you give all these things twenty seconds to get even worse.  
Slowly you push yourself ahead to find the first corner which leads into the main room of this building. There it isn't the drinks and lamps on the counter which jump directly into your eyes. Your attention stops at a sparkling dress, on the patterns which draw themselves golden over the fabric to find an end at the spine. Her back is completely exposed, showing in your direction. Naked skin, blonde hair in beautiful waves, cut short so that her neck is shown. She is sitting straight, but she seems to take no notice of you. That's the reason why you make yourself existent.  
“Miss Kean, I need your help.”  
“We're closed,” she answers harshly, repellent. Her voice is filled with despair. The reason behind this is a riddle to you but it sounds painful like it's consuming her. You can somehow feel the same in your head. A little groaning, a little scratchy.  
“I know that but I'm not here to drink.”  
At first, she doesn't react. She just bends forward, appears to collect her thoughts before she finally turns to you. Her eyes seem angry, her face waiting. “What?”  
“I need information about Jerome Valeska,” you say, getting to the point as fast as possible because Barbara clearly doesn't want to talk to you.  
“Jerome?” She is full of disbelieve, raises an eyebrow before she laughs silently. “What do I get from telling you what I know about this insane redhead?”  
“Payment, as always.”  
“That won't be enough. I have no time to deal with that plague, too. And he will surely pay me a visit to say thanks for my service.”  
“I'm here because I'm going to kill him. He won't have the time to send a greeting card on the house.” A dismissive gesture at your side. The severity stays in this room without reason. If you get what you need there is no way for Valeska to get away, both of you know that but nobody wants to trust this game.  
“No. If you want to know something about Jerome, it would be better to pay him a visit and ask. Maybe both of you come together in Arkham and tell each other stories.”  
“What if I don't want to know something about Jerome in particular?” You are still trying, accustom to the bad light that throws long shadows on Barbara's face. She's still not convinced, leans back at the counter, just looks at you and you give her the time that she needs to think about the question.  
“What do you want?”  
“Does Jerome have company?”  
Again Barbara seems to laugh at you, shakes slowly and extensive her head. She appears to find interest in the picture behind the question. “Oh, he has them indeed. There is always someone who is dumb enough to make a contract with the insane.”  
“Who are they?”  
“People from Arkham. The institution for scum is big.” She smiles, compulsively, nearly disgusted from the memory of being there herself. “Jonathan Crane and Jervis Tetch. One of them hypnotizes people and the other one sprays around with a gas that is said to make the biggest fear of someone real. At least that's what I heard. However.”  
Softly you bite your bottom lip, try to create a picture out of her words. Both men are known, were big hits in the news before they got into Arkham. With that, you know from whom to keep a distance if possible. Hypnosis is the work of one while gas is the speciality of the other. Two remarkable hurdles which make everything harder but not impossible. They won't spend every free minute with Jerome. That means there are hours when you can attack. When he is alone. A present for you.  
“Is that all?” Tired, Barbara tries to get you out of her way because her time is precious and you are bothersome. Her problems are nothing that needs to be dealt with by others. They're not interesting because they're not yours. A short nod is enough before you take some steps backwards. Then you turn around to stop at the exit.  
“I will send you the money as always.”  
She ignores you, is already back to not notice anything. Something you can deal with. There is no reason to border her even more. In the end, she is important, irreplaceable so that you're not allowed to get on bad terms with her.  
The dull pounding in your head is still there but can't distract you. It will get better if the club falls back, if Gotham gets present again while the air is dirty but the light natural. In front of the door, you will form your plan. Breath in, check the pulse and breath out. The next step will be easier.


	4. Collection toys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You slowly collect your toys. It's time to get some rest.  
> Maybe leave a comment while you enjoy!

A game that was made for everyone presupposes that the creator doesn't have to get his hands dirty. That's an unspoken rule, followed by way too many people. Even you.  
Killing Jerome with your own hands would turn the game into something personal and that is something that you don't want. Alva said it once, sometimes it comes up in your head, but it's wrong. Just one way is the right one. The one of Jerome.  
He prepares little attractions full of happiness, surrounded by bitter games and bloody wishes. Something that you can imitate to kill him. At the same time, a chaos which charm is uncatchable even though it seems tempting to try. Like Alva said it has to be a survival game, small and fast because the time is limited and the price high. You didn't think long about it, just tried to connect the ends of some ideas. Nothing from all of this seems funny but Jerome could turn it into something special. Maybe he's going to make his show out of this, takes on the work until the grave. From your side, it won't be better than the simple line in your head. Being a show master must be learned. Your fields are the messages in pictures on a crime scene, broken and lost like the life that was taken. Flickering candles, dying flowers, bottled drugs on white tiling. An own language. Your language. Completely different than moderation of a show in which blood seems absolutely pointless.  
Your lips are pressed together, bringing pressure, pain, can't make the idea tasty. Every thought seems too much, wrong, makes no picture that fascinates you. What's left is the simple variant: _putting Valeska together with some strangers. Dogs of the streets that nobody in Gotham will miss.  
_ Nevertheless, the event can go wrong. Without a real audience, without real quality, it won't be more than a cage with unloved little things. The knowledge is there but won't help, drags on the shoulders because unimaginativeness dominates. You pull your jacket closer to your body and try to turn the rushing steps into calm ones. It fails. In you prevails the urge to move, to do something without being noticed. But it stays a riddle where you want to go. You don't have to search any more. There is already a building in your sight that will turn into a mass grave. You know this town, know where the rotted houses turn Gotham into something tired. A little lost between all the things that need to be saved and end up behind nevertheless. Because they have no meaning. Things like that are helpful from time to time.  
At the edge of the town, far away from the law, in a miserably cheap hotel, your hopes start to bloom. There, Jerome will find out about his situation and all the others will enjoy it. At least in your head, muddled with pictures from past missions.  
  
You stop.  
Your breath pushes hardly through your lungs, comes over your lips and leaves nothing more than the feeling of nervousness biting on the nerves. Maybe it's because of the plan, but it could be everything that makes you alive. Normally you keep it simple. Catch, kill, decorate. You give death a story, a meaning that was already written down. This time you have to write the script before someone plays it and the story starts. Similar to a movie, moving to the rhythm of time until the end. This has its charm but possesses oppressive aspects of new demands which seem to stamp on everything. Nobody will escape.  
What's left are unstable breathing and the knowledge that the chest will rise and lower. Time passes to fast, you know that since you felt like thinking four seconds in ten minutes. The sun slowly retires, let itself get devoured at the end of the world. Reddish rays reflect in the widows of skyscrapers, turn the town in a fitting blood red. The same colour that one has to clean up from stones of the pavement. That is no imagination because everybody knows that revenge bites through the heart without any break. Everyone has a knife, as well as a bad day. Nevertheless, the population does not decrease. Instead, it is increasing because everyone is looking for a place in this broken industry of power just to complain and then go out of line. Only when the people have arrived here, they realize that one can not tame the minds and can not bury the hatred. Something you can see right away if you look closely enough.  
For a brief moment, you put your head back, watching the world above you, admiring the terribly limited freedom. It becomes darker, with every breath and haunting, as it sinks into blackness. Also this evening there will be no stars because they have long gone out.  
Your hand goes into a pocket of your pants, dig out a flip phone, with which you want to call Mr Halmond. The display seems unnaturally bright in the face of this hour, where everything mixes in dark colours between red and black. The names in the phone list seem endless, written in straight lines, completely meaningless. A collection of memories because most of the faces behind the numbers are already dead. Murdered by you, killed by your victims. Everything is represented, only a little is still there. Halmond is one of those exceptions that is coming to the foreground right now. Your finger only needs to press the green handset once. Then the device finds its way to the ear, makes itself felt with cold aluminium of the outer shell, while the ringing in the line appears noticeably protracted. Only twice before he picks up.  
“Are you getting results?” No welcome, no joy. An icy voice of fewer expectations reaches you, inquires directly after the important things.  
“Yes, some.”  
“You need help?” He doesn't ask because he has to, but because he already knows the answer and just wants you to confirm it. Comparable to a judge who knows much more than the defendant himself. Pointless and yet winning.  
“I need some man at _Sully's & Mey._ They need to seal up the windows on the first floor and to lock them on the second. Furthermore, the two doors leading outside need to be watched,” you reply calmly. Your stage gets a name, maybe even a new coat of paint. It's clear what you need, but it's not sure if it's enough.  
“I will send some men. The matter will be done in about two hours.”  
“Thank you.” You remove the phone from the ear and hang up before your words hit your boss. Again the display arouses interest. One name, one number, just press once to connect. Everything is easy, just like your job. Think positive, you stick to it.  
  
Shaking your head, you let the device disappear, stop distracting yourself so that you can start moving a little more quietly. The insecurity is still gnawing at the conscience and it's no secret that you feel the same way you did on your very first assignment. Somewhere lost between concrete and fumes with a plan that is doomed to fail and yet somehow works. That's the only reassuring thing. It will be just like then, certainly. Worry about nothing, profit for success.  
Burying your hands in your pockets, you walk along the sidewalk, at the edge of the road, populated by lonely souls and alcoholized glances. The game requires participants, and in the state where most of these people are, they can be lured into it.  
Already from afar, you see two men in expensive suits and with a big smirk, artificial smile and well-groomed hands. They talk to each other, not able to walk straight any more. For office people, the day ends early and the night breaks at noon, where the money sits loosely and the bars wave tempting. They are thieves of society, spending money that they don't own and are getting away with it because the law has loopholes. In your eyes, they look like fun, entertainment, and new heights that they can bring to the game. That's why you raise a friendly hand, draw the interest of both in your direction. Their looks, filled with mistrust and subliminal disregard. Only a hint of both, but noticeably present. In their eyes, you are nothing more than a cockroach on the streets with no name and no money.  
“Gentlemen,” you start, make your voice gentle and your smile sure, “you look like wise businessmen to me. Did you know that the Sully's & Mey will get a reopening tomorrow?”  
“Who said that?” One of them answers, tilting his head because he probably knows better.  
“I'm sorry. I'm _Marylion_ from the _Gotham City Daily Activity Report_ , a journalist. I'm trying to invite more people to the reopening because...the more of you come, the bigger the article gets. A win-win situation for all of us since the heads of Gotham will be there too.” Lying, sometimes you can do it without batting an eyelid. “Would you come?”  
Both look at each other, not surprised because they believe you and at the same time knew nothing about it. As if it is nothing new to go blind and deaf between the needs of the poor. Presumably, they realize, besides the alcohol, only the things they have to. An advantage for you.  
“Sounds good. When tomorrow?”  
“In the evening, at eight.”  
They nod to you, swallow the bait with swollen chests and straightened shoulders because they think they are special. The thing is, they are, just not in the same sense as they think.  
  
Your legs start to move again, while your eyes are watching for even more victims. To find someone isn't difficult. Everyone is perfect and not good enough at the same time. It doesn't matter which of those hands kills Jerome, but it has to be one. Not a big obstacle, considering that they are all normal people in the end. Ghosts who don't know why they live in this place. And not all of them are eligible, you finally admit that. Sometimes the shadows of the streets are nice companions. In your eyes, they aren't supposed to die before your boss gives you the order to kill them. So you overlook them.  
When you collide with someone, the searching look passes, settles down. There is this young girl, whom you have already stopped once on this day. She seems to recognize you, wrinkles her nose, speaks to you. Somehow. “What?”  
You have done nothing, said nothing, and yet she is so terribly hostile. Understandable, at the same time annoying. If she dies, it's not your problem.  
“Nothing. I just thought...you need money, right?” It's a simple question with a simple answer that you already know. Sometimes you are no better than Halmond.  
“Why would you care?”  
“I don't. I just think that if you try to steal something, you should steal it from the right ones. I heard from some businessmen that an exchange will take place at...I think it was Sully's & Mey. They said that there will be at least three suitcases full of money. People in suits feel way to save on these streets.”  
“And why should I believe you?”  
“You don't have to, it's your decision. But if you plan to go take some money for me too. Sadly I've got no time to be there.” You do not want to say more. For young girls, the most important thing is to arouse interest and not to demand an answer. You just start moving again, go, because you don't care about the rest. If she comes, it's okay, if not, it doesn't matter. Her gaze bores into your back, lying on your body, reflecting the mistrust in her. She will come, will certainly, because she wants too much and knows too little. A proof that the streets haven't always been her home.

A uniform clack accompanies your steps, the calmness in the arms weighs and tensions to tear. Anything that doesn't fit this mood could turn against you. A simple thought that should bring security, although there is no security here. Your eyes are attached to the walls of houses, gliding over the street lamps, which turn on at a steady distance. Lights illuminate the ground with tired spots, brighten up cars and apartments, so everyone can be sure that the city is still awake. Everything coupled with the human misconception that the world protects you as long as you move in the light. You know better. Even in sunshine, the blood is red and the urge to kill remains.  
Again and again, you let your gaze slip into the alleys you pass by, finally noticing a homeless person on the floor and a thug nearby. The latter waving his arms around, still seems to be talking quietly, maybe hissing so that no one hears him in the sound of darkness. They are both social garbage, if you believe the standard, that all try to pretend. At least that would give them a reason to die. For one, it won't be more than a lonely death on the street anyway, and sooner or later the other one will probably just be torn off. With his inaccurate movements and restless legs, he doesn't make a professional impression. He won't come far with his dreams. You can sort them out. Both. And you will.  
Determined, you move closer, leisurely as if nothing could disturb you. One of them is startling, the more agile, restless. “Hey, piss off, bitch!”  
“Shut the fuck up, that's my territory.” You give yourself as one of them because they trust their kind more than the normal people or the new rich.  
“Women don't possess anything.”  
“Let's find out or you piss off.” Provocative, you lift your arms, pretend that nobody knows better. “If you wanna piss someone off, try it at Sullivan or whatever they call it.”  
“Sullivan? What the fuck is that?” He comes closer, rubs his nose, looks interested but helpless. His mind doesn't even warn him, seems disconnected, terribly numb.  
“Oh, come on. The cheap hotel,” you groan playfully annoyed from his dumbness. “That empty thing. Sullivan, you know. Sullivan and Mai.”  
“You mean the Sully's & Mey, you stupid bitch! What the hell should I do there?”  
“I don't know! Some rich buggers going to have a scary party there by tomorrow. There is always something to get.”  
“Shit, for real?” He obviously doesn't belong to the sort that thinks first and then jumps into the fire. He eats out of your hand because he is naive and thinks that one day his big chance will come. Maybe he will get it, in the face of death.  
“Yeah. This will be a hell of a party.”  
He nods, looks back to his victim and leaves. Not a single word can be found on his lips. Instead, he follows the path down to nowhere. Uninteresting, touches you just cold in a manner of seconds because people like him want nothing else.  
This leaves only the homeless person staring apathetically to the ground. In front of him, you go to your knees, grab him by the shoulder and shake gently. His stiff body hardly follows the movement, seems rigid, almost motionless. Until he startles, looks at you, opens his mouth behind thick grey whiskers. He understood nothing, seems too confused. “Am I not allowed to sleep here, miss?”  
“You are but I saw you here and I'm working for the help of the homeless. Tomorrow night at Sully's & Mey you will be able to get a warm meal for free. You can warm up and sleep there.”  
He shivers, seems to be happy, lets his head go up and down as if he agrees. You smile at him because he deserves it and because you are sorry for him. Then you get up again, turn your back on him and drag your body back to the main street. It is getting colder and the last rays only scratch the surface of the sidewalk. It's time for a break. Sleep. There is still enough time for Jerome. Going there and watch him doesn't take long. Before the evening falls, he will be your new toy and maybe even enjoy it.  
Because he has no idea that it is the final destination.


	5. Catch him if you can

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You finally attack Jerome. But his words are not as easy as you wish.

Your car stops in front of the rundown building that Jerome considers to be his safe place. Grey walls, stains on the corners, graffiti over the windows. It looks like the beginning of the purest emptiness of the city and at the same time, it conveys that somehow people have always been in this place.  
The broad shadows of this alley provide shelter because no one is looking. No one wants to see in the mazes of the walls of Gotham, which is no more for you than the desired advantage. Your hands are resting on the steering wheel, clinging tightly, grabbing and releasing. One foot on the gas pedal, the other on the coupling. You're ready for an escape, not for Jerome. You can never be sure enough and within the light bodywork, the outside world is almost no longer threatening. As if projectiles couldn't break through glass and bombs couldn't hit through metal. A mistake, as it turns out on some days again and again.  
The shelter burns tightly on your retina, you don't let it out of sight and at the same time you think about the process. This car contains everything you need. A pistol with four shots left, two magazines to refill. Handcuffs, a sturdy rope, a decent knife, a dagger for poetic deaths. Besides, five syringes with a narcotic and a machete. It's enough. It's enough with the lethal injections from Alva. Anything of that will tame Jerome, you know, but hoping for the less bloody, deadly methods.  
A sigh spreads through the interior of the car, expressing your thoughtfulness, which brings intense nervousness. It shows on your lower lip with bite marks, hurts with sweetish anticipation and metallic blood on the buds of your tongue. This always happens when the end draws nearer because it brings a certain thrill. You don't know until the end if everything will go exactly as planned and maybe that's why you like this job. Over and over, because after the first time you can't resist any more. Of course, it's not the cleanest way that can make Gotham any better, but it dispels the boredom of this city and gives it some life. Everything that disgusts you in this place is also what arouses you in the same breath. Maybe because the best pictures on the streets are drawn with blood, tears and murderous traction. Past lives awaken tired spirits from sleep, make the heart beat faster and push the sky a little further away. You know that feeling of freedom. You know what it's like to be standing on the curb, with a blade in your hand, while your gaze reaches the clouds that pass by once more. You survived. One more day you just survived. It has always been that way because something in people demands to be above the rest. Somehow. No matter in what way. Death always plays into your hands.  
Breathing deeply, you tense your muscles, don't want to relax too much at the thought. The senses must remain sharp, the view unclouded. Uncertainty gives confidence, insecurity and allure in one. A feeling of desire and a cry for help that is fundamentally late. This is your way to escape human madness. A method that makes you only slightly better than the rest. You canalize this chaos into an action that is wanted somewhere without burning down half the city. A little fact about which in the end you have the control. Without this freedom, madness would have long since penetrated your bones. Because the pressure in this society is barely noticeable and yet crushes everything that doesn't learn fast enough. Ignorance makes the body weak. Something to believe in.

For a moment you close your eyes, colouring your vision to a dark picture full of dots that dance colourfully over the surface and leave you no more than deep blackness. They burn a bit, are dry, want to water, but don't have any. You're tired, you didn't sleep much, because it's always like this when the big things knock on the front gate. The restlessness has noticeably subsided., but it is still there and it will accompany you until Jerome is dead. Annoying, if you stay with the truth.  
The bang of a car door terrifies you, tearing the silence into shreds and your recovery in two. Nails drill into the leather of the steering wheel while the view frantically scans the place. An answer behind the noise can be found quickly: a white van parked in front of the building.  
He looks terribly conspicuous in this place, too bright for the dirty environment, too new, for the old barracks. Despite everything, Jerome and his friends live undetected in this house. Only a few meaningless wanderers have recognized this home of insanity, kept silent because the GCPD generally has no hope of handling a thing in the right way.  
You lean slightly aside to get a better look, to see three men, who get out hardly seriously, nearly carefree. At the top clearly recognizable Jerome, well dressed, so inappropriate to the shelter. Striking in a bright, clean grey. Jacket, plaid pants, white shoes. The men behind him are individual, one hooded, one no less intent on appearance. It makes you smile slightly. Of course, the performance has to be right, you can see that. Their appearance makes it as loose as the law of Gotham because it only exists for dolls. A cage in which they don't fit. In their way, they celebrate the freedom that pushes chains and rules away. None of them would himself just get caught like that. Except from you.  
Each of them disappears behind the entrance, calm and not even trying to hide. A sign like you want to think, the reason why you finally leave the steering wheel and guide your fingers to the glove compartment to choose the equipment. The little things are always within reach, the rest well stowed in the luggage space. The choice isn't difficult. Just a syringe to silence Jerome for a few hours - that's all you need.  
Looking again at the building, you can feel your pulse racing. Your plan becomes reality in tiny steps and the noose is closing. It is your responsibility to continue, so you finally get out and set foot on the dangerous pavement of alien acts. Carefully, wisely, because at any moment one of them might come back.  
The path leads you around the car to the trunk where you take the rope you keep there. It fits around your shoulder, hangs there, swings easily. With this Jerome will be unable to move, that's for sure. But it's just the beginning, so the flap slowly snaps back into place as you sneak up to the building. Breathing flat, because the lane becomes wider, more open and brighter with each step. Anyone could spot the dark shadow on the unevenly poured concrete, and that is exactly what mustn't happen.

Entering the gate would be the act of a lunatic. People like Penguin or Barbara love to put on a show and talk before they shoot. Jerome, on the other hand, shoots first and then talks because he doesn't like being interrupted. You remember a television broadcast that underlined exactly this point. By that time, he had just portrayed the GCPD as utterly useless and was giving a speech about the imprisonment of anyone with some sense left. The man behind him threw something in, clever and skilful before the bullet of a pistol found its way through his skin and bones. Valeska had shot him for it, within seconds, without hesitation. And then he just continued.  
Shortly grimacing, the memory moves back into the background. There has to be another way in and no matter how nasty it may be, the windows are the best option. Not necessarily on the ground floor, but a pipe that rises rustily against the wall offers a climb to the first floor. You know that the metal can carry you because the old pipes of this city are more stable than the new ones. They can hold out at least the weight of one person. The anchoring in the wall will stand it, even if you don't want to believe in it for a bare second. Still, it seems to be the only way, and if you make it to the canopy, which stretches narrowly over the front door, then you have a chance.  
That's why you devote yourself to this climb, try a firm grip so as not to slip. The feet brace themselves against the wall, making it a little easier to get up. Your weight pulls on your muscles, reminds you that you have to push every inch of your body upwards. Few, powerful moves that feel like miles.  
Stubbornly, your will pulls you up, ignoring the tug that seems to go between your bones. The effort makes the heart pump, oxygen becomes an urgent commodity. Breathe faster, strained, intermittently, how it comes over you. Heat comes up in you, makes the blood in your veins boil, makes your skin under the arms look slightly wetter. At the same time, this heat shoots into your hands, leaving the tube between the fingers frighteningly cold in contrast. All this captivates you mentally, yet subliminally expresses the desire to arrive at the top. Silent and unseen.  
It is only a few meters that you gradually climb before the canopy comes within reach. You don't dare to look down, don't want to be distracted, just look to the side where the edge seems to smile seductively. On dried tar, you find a hold, grip, so that your body can release from the metal. Heavy attraction hangs on your clothes, wants to bring you back to the ground while you dangle there defenceless. The rope rubs through the clothes over your shoulder, swinging more back and forth. Fatigue eats through your arms. You only have endurance when it comes to running away, but not with the other things that seem so much more important at such moments than unseen disappearances. That's why you usually kill quietly, without much difficulty.  
Laboriously, you try to pull yourself up, holding your breath, because breathing is difficult. Any concentration hangs in the limbs, not in the lungs. Only when you are far enough up to swing a leg on the roof, panting noises penetrate your lips. The new position reduces the pressure that wants to tear you down. It makes pressing up the last few pounds easier so that your body soon finds room on the ledge. Then you stop. Just for a blink of an eye to breathe. The muscles throb, an uneven pattern has pressed into the fingertips. Reddish fingers, slow breathing. The will to continue.  
You get on your feet, press your body against the wall, let your eyes wander over the ground. Nothing has happened, the van is still untouched in its place and you can see your car in the shadow of the opposite alley. There is a window on each of your sides - within easy reach. One just steps away, the other slightly up, so you have to pull yourself up again. Your instincts point to the easier way. The building is old, the wood visibly unstable. It wouldn't carry you, it would just break under your weight. So you slip aside, hear the rough plaster clinging to the fibres of your clothes. Scratching, rubbing gently. The way inward moves in your direction, close enough to take a look inside. Behind the dusty glass, drawn by dirt and bird dung, there is no personal touch. Not a used bed or clothes. Probably Jerome has nothing that seems important to him. No memory of childhood, no wishes for the future. He doesn't even seem to sleep in this place, which also means he occupies another room. Good for you, better for him, because you have to find the room where he mixes up sick ideas and quiet hours.

The decision to enter this spot isn't difficult. You have to use options like these. Even if the frames are rotten and the windows are closed. It is easy to release the lever in the interior from the outside. Old constructions warp over the years, ensuring that the wood is no longer held at the right point. Slight back pressure forces the barrier in, giving enough space to reach with one hand through the gap underneath and feel the lever. You feel the cold metal, press a finger against it until it gives in, jumps up and opens the way. So coming in isn't a challenge and it doesn't take more than a consensual silence on your part not to be heard.  
You swing slowly over the window sill, which groans tolerably under your weight. It's almost a miracle that it's still strong enough to hold a human. Behind you, you close the frame again, leaving everything as dusty and untouched as before. The smell inside is stale, soaked in the scent of old wood and musty laundry. Surrounded by cupboards, a place to sleep and a desk and chair, it reminds you of something. Of closed curtains, stifling air and the constant fear that the nightmares would look for you even in the corners. The conscience is scratching at you, refrains from the idea that common sense is not always the solution. In your life probably never was. The icy days under tattered blankets are over and you'll never find out if a tiny "no" could have changed something.  
Slightly shaking your head still leaves the situation in which you are. That's why you're heading for the exit, sneaking over the creaking wooden floor whose planks have dark spots. Every step makes the hair on your skin stand up because a single noise in the silence sounds like an echoing scream. There is no peace here that you could trust blindly.

You stop in front of the door, press an ear to the thin workmanship to see if it's safe to leave the room. At first, there is only a rushing silence in the wood, as if it were still breathing, after all these years, somehow in that form left behind. Followed by steps that accentuate the sound like a melody that one shouldn't listen to. Your heart beats, jumps up and down, doesn't know how to escape. The creaking of the ground is dull, heavy, is seconds away. A sign of long legs, a heavy body, a man who doesn't care if you hear him or not. He comes closer and you can't hide in the corners. Not like back then, because the naivety is missing. Only a jump to the side remains open, lets you suck in the air before the door opens – inwards. It is luck that your body disappears behind the plate, pressed firmly against the wall and hardly able to move. Meanwhile, the visitor enters, whistles, looks cheerful, so terribly cheerful in this oppressive situation. You see how his long fingers, wrapped in white gloves, grab the edge. A dry swallow slips down your throat, makes it ache, your pulse racing. Immediately thereafter, the door is closed with momentum, giving a clear view of a wide back under light fabric. Jerome.  
Fingertips grope for the narcotic that you carry with you. Bright liquid behind clear glass, enough to force a horse to its knees. A single stab in the neck and all your problems are solved. For the beginning. A simple plan that stimulates you to act before your target turns to you.  
The cracking of the ground is treacherous, chasing a shock through your bones. It excites you, curbs you at the same time because a lump of uncertainty appears in your chest and painfully spreads to your sides. Failure is not allowed.  
While your nails push the plastic cap off the needle, Jerome turns in your direction. Playfully surprised, a little pleased and at the same time amused. You can't classify it exactly because the scars change its facial expressions, they falsify it. He doesn't care, it gets you out of your mind. The hesitation goes a moment too long, which is why Valeska gets hold of your wrist, twisting it slightly, chasing a bite through your bones, causing the syringe to slide to the floor. A muffled clatter, the shell shatters, followed by the harsh tone of a man on these degenerate streets.  
“Oh? I didn't know that the room service is still working.” He doesn't take you seriously, shrugs as if it didn't matter. Then he looks at you, comes closer. “What's for dinner?”

His grip is firm, stronger than any attempt you could muster. You only have one answer to his question, because entertainment is exactly what you two are trying to achieve.  
“Jerome.”  
“Sounds...interesting,” he murmurs, looks away for a moment, looks so thoughtful that everything else becomes completely irrelevant. There are only you and this man in this room. This madman, who lets go of your joint and gets away with springy steps, lets you out of sight. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”  
“Oh, I hope so. Normally I don't cook raw ingredients,” you are purring, matching the mood of two killers of different areas. Somewhere between mockery and scorn, interest and playfulness cling to the walls like shadows. Part of you, part of Gotham.  
“There is always a first time.” Swinging back to you, he holds his arms slightly stretched out, similar to the desire for a hug.  
“Let's hope, that it will vanish as fast as possible.”  
“No!” He raises his index finger with a prudent gesture, holding his head slightly forward. “You have to enjoy the first time. Freedom. Life. The blood after your long, long journey...”  
“My long, long journey has ended a while ago and I can't hear the scream of the bars, Jerome. I'm sane.”  
“Really? Then tell me, what is sanity?”  
You're thinking, trying to find an easy answer that fits into his world view. Words that appear, terrifyingly honest and depressing. “Freedom in chains.”  
“Exactly!” he exclaims, pointing at you. “You are pretty smart.”  
“And on a very short leash,” you respond because it's true and because you don't have time to talk to Jerome about the meaning of life. He mustn't be right, not in your head. The abyss has always been dangerously close. Something inside you prefers to live in chains rather than suffocate into euphoria. That's why you point past Jerome on the glass of the window. “I could never be as free as the idiots out there.”  
Of course, he follows your hint, doesn't feel any fear or discomfort in this room. He turns his head over his shoulder, glancing at the dirt and smudged face of fragile buildings that have long been forgotten. You, however, take advantage of this opportunity, have to capture this man and take him away. Time doesn't last forever, just as nice conversations and friendly gestures. The handle on the desk chair seems perfectly legitimate. Your fingers drill into the wooden back, let the four legs loose ground. Jerome wants to say something, is back to the actual topic, but doesn't get the chance for it. With all your strength you'll knock the seat over his head, sideways, because it's easier. The serve tugs through your arms, a resistance that won't stop you. The material cracks, breaks, steals Jerome's balance. All these things clatter to the ground, loud and conspicuous, so his followers will surely hear it in the rest of the house. You're not sure if anyone will volunteer to visit Valeska, but you don't want to mess with it, have to go away but are still be unable to move. Stiff limbs prevent any movement, bumps breath in and out. The backrest is still in your hands, is all that is left from the chair. The plan slowly gets out of shape, robbing the desire behind the act, because improvisation in such cases is like a nightmare.  
Snorting you throw the rest at your feet, tearing your hands up for a moment. Inwardly, hysterical cursing turns your stomach around, causing discomfort that licks happily over your back. What remains is a dull insult on your lips.  
“Idiot.”


	6. Come together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group comes together, Jerome wakes up, your game is about to start.

Crushing weight on your back, a soft sigh of circumstance. Jerome remains motionless, fixed with a rope so that he doesn't get lost. One foot is already back on the window sill, which creaks brittle and visibly bends slightly. It looks interesting for a moment, gives the impression that it will collapse at any moment if it has to bear any more. Nothing that seems necessary. There are already enough breaks in this place.  
Energetic you press both of you over the wood, jumping on the canopy, seem so terribly concentrated in this position, in which all the movement reminds of a life in chains. The rope rubs over the fabric, compresses itself more tightly, makes it harder to breathe the terribly thick air. In this immobility, it is futile to close the window even though it makes you uncertain because nobody knows how the others in this house will react to the disappearance of their boss. However, another choice doesn't remain, as so often in the deeds of each.  
The path continues in depressing fear. Fear that something else could go wrong, even though everything went so well up to this point, gnaws at the edges of the idea. In some places, it almost seems like pure suicide. Your hands are terribly sweaty, slide down the pipe several times, which leads down from where you've already come up. Creaking, it hisses in the ears, because it is hardly able to hold both of you and somehow holds out. What remains is hope, your racing pulse of exertion and uncertainty, because everything could happen. Your prey is heavy and your weight demands every corner of your body to listen so as not to lose grip. Carrying both isn't only a challenge for the old metal of the exterior wall. Every single aching muscle indicates that some things are ruined by fate. An unwavering superstition that sometimes only meets tired smiles and puffs off because nobody wants to believe it any more.  
This time your feet find a space near the pipe too, securing that elaborate act of a plan before the way down turns into a laid-back job where compulsive breath-holding seems like a must. Only the solid floor of cast lies, which becomes relevant a few seconds later, lets you breathe again. At the same time, warm, even breezes press against your neck, emphasize this strange mood that is spreading. Terribly tense and yet full of anticipation, which seems truly out of place. Nevertheless, it grows because every second passes without attack, without the slightest injury, so you just turn on your heels and sprint to the car. As fast as the extra weight allows. It's awfully slow, as you have to discover. Jerome takes the wind out of every movement, making them less fluid and more reeling. A heated up-and-down that lets sweat trickle down the skin and move into the fibres of the clothing. Up to the car you hold out this slight feeling of dizziness, but then you wheeze several times because you badly need some air that seems to be gone. This lack of oxygen makes your lungs burn, somehow drying them out. You let it happen, take it, just to have that short break. A few breaths before moving on.  
Wet hands grope along the cold body of the car, tired legs lead to the trunk. There, your fingertips find the knot in the rope that presses Valeska to your back. You just have to turn around, release the hold, and drop him back into the storage room to feel freedom and regain the lightness of each step. Combined with haunting relief, because the hardest part of this mad idea is done, Gotham already feels like a better place. Not much longer and the streets will be a little safer. Not in a serious sense, because security never exists. Rather metaphorically, because something happened that pleases people in a fair way. Even if the solution begins with violence and should end with it, it remains right in the eyes of anyone who wants to believe in a fragile way out, full of peace.  
To maintain this belief, it's your job to go forward and take a new narcotic out of the glove box just to administer it to Jerome. A man of his calibre shouldn't cause more trouble. That's why it's easier when he sleeps until you get to where the script starts for a rash game.

○○○

Grip under his arms, plaintive tugging him over the rough asphalt. You don't want to carry him any more. He's heavy, costs time, which blurs visible on the horizon and draws the evening. The preparations are still lying in front of your eyes, must be put together, before the sky is wrapped in darkness. There may be a few minutes left. You drag him into the building, tearing helplessly at his clothes because sometimes the power your arms forsakes and leaves only bitter weakness. Not the best thing that can happen to you, but still enough to control it.  
The desire of sealed windows, so no one can just leave behind the bloody sounds of crazy ideas, was met by your boss. Thick boards block the escape, are too tight to loosen. They let only a little light inside, keep the bestial mood of the city in front of the door so that something own can arise within these four walls. Only a thin influence remains, almost transparent, which squeezes between narrow cracks and dominates the glass on the second floor. There they just locked the widows, made frames immovable and considered the glass in its filthy existence with a smile. They are a way out, fragile and unique because everyone is free to choose death by jumping. All others have a hiding place in dark corners, behind dusty furniture, left behind and forgotten. Similar to a familiar game, you will all watch and act, wait and die, one sooner than the other – while your life has no place in this mission. You'll just watch. You've already imagined the actions, imagined how easily the panic will eat them up until only remnants of the Chosen adorn the wooden floor. At the same time, you have to see if any of these unconscious participants can kill Jerome because otherwise, everything sticks to you. It would be alright, certainly. However, less optimal.  
Two of your comrades, cold murderers in black suits, standing at the front door, have already assured you that even the back entrance promises no escape. They will close the gate when every tile on the field has arrived. You will be the only one to survive. The participants of this abstruse game will fall like wolves in sheep's clothing over each other, stifling mutual cries under the fabric. The last of them is allowed to leave, not knowing that it's just an excuse to get a response at all. You can't allow anyone to notify the GCPD. Not when other people seek to make the paved streets of Gotham more peaceful behind hostile bureaucracy and emerging individuals. This also means that everyone has a cell phone, but nobody will think about using it. You're sure of that. Because Jerome is a wanted killer and also because the girl certainly doesn't live like an angel. The act benefits.

You drop your victim when you arrive in the middle of the room. The position is just right and you have a free lolling that wakes the tired limbs to leave a tingling sensation. You already had lighter jobs. But to do justice to a human being is not always achieved with a quick death and sufficient adornment of his way of life. Some cases prove it over and over again, others speak against it. Both have a certain amount of effort, but Jerome seems differently in this regard.  
His motionless figure on the floor attracts your interest. He's a madman, usually seen only on the move, armed with wild ideas, a firearm, and no right. In his eyes, there is no difference between black and white, no grey in the middle, because everything works as long as it is entertaining. A little show of its own, full of crazy speeches and wild gestures, so that all eyes are on the acts between mind and freedom. Gotham knows the chaos behind Jerome's back, disapprovingly watching him, because he never sleeps, if you really wish for it. It is a change to see him so calm, defenceless and yet completely carefree. Even in his dreams, he isn't followed by the images of burning corpses and angry faces.  
Your eyes cling to his back and you can't say a single word to condemn him, because you understand him better than you want. Insanity would overtake your body completely if it weren't a task in your life to overcome that strange feeling. Dammed up dislike, mourning fragments of memories, and the fact that it could always have been better than it really was, leave you no more than a bitter smile over an unconscious search. You want to find something that suits you better and at the same time, you don't dare to take another step forward because at the other end people like Valeska are waiting. In this life, there is only endurance. Somehow. _You have never understood how_.  
With slow steps, you circle what the heads of this city see as a danger. A young man who must be in his early twenties, marked by an eternal chase of joy. Disfigured, scarred, yet much more human than most early-morning figures on their way to routine. They all act like small machines. He, on the other hand, has learned to live because a bad day has undermined every sense of secular rules. In this case, he seems enviably lost. He remains an order. A request that exists in your ulterior motive while you are wondering what he would look like wouldn't all those scars paint him.

Dismissing from those thoughts, your view sweeps over the interior, longing for other considerations than those that you can't fully grasp. There isn't much left. Old cupboards, rotten stairs, stinking curtains and a certain amount of nostalgia for people who got to know this place years ago. Too much die in this city, where watching is everything that's left, because you don't remember what you should save. Ultimately nothing remains and you can't change it, just listen to how people talk outside. Your assistants keep their heads covered, silencing their desires somewhere in the shadows, which also means the rest of your players have arrived. A go-ahead for the match, a reason to target the stairs to the second floor and stay undetected. Behind a railing with artful gaps, the view down remains free. This house reminds of a villa, old and past, open as a book, riddled with secret pitfalls.  
A grip on the cell phone, an open message with your boss. He will pass on any command to your assistants whose names are as unknown as their CV. Basically, no one knows the other, because murderers don't make friends and are kept apart by nature. _You don't know a different way._  
The first sheep to enter the interior with searching eyes are the thief and the boy whose big day will take place in the evenings. They are obviously not friends, run side by side with a distance that expresses fear and at the same time played serenity. Probably a route acquaintance, on the few meters to the scaffold. Their eyes are fixed on Jerome, who is still sleeping but will wake up at every moment.  
“Who's that? What...is this?” she asks, perplexed and a bit taken aback by the icy void she hadn't been promised. No one pays attention to Valeska's face, which only affirms the ignorance of both of them, distinguishing them for easy prey during the presentation.  
“Shit, how should I know? Maybe he's dead. Maybe we are too early. You know, don't you? The party is still about to come,” the companion replies, is far more stupid than you thought.  
“If something would take place here it wouldn't look so disgusting.”  
“How uncomfortable...”  
Both of your teammates are startled, they don't know exactly where the rough and sleepy voice comes from, before the misery on the ground slowly gathers. It's going according to plan and it's good to know that a simple idea can be implemented so easily and effectively. It is one of the positive events, as you discover because otherwise, you can usually find only serious criticism in newspapers and infectious frustration in human faces throughout the day.  
The arrival of the other participants seems to be timed, brings more and more transient life into the situation. A little refreshing, because everyone kept their words somehow, because everyone wants something specific and won't get it.  
After the teenagers follow the homeless, trembling and seeking help, hoping that he finds refuge in this place. He looks around, encounters three faces who look at him and say nothing because they are all looking for an answer in this situation. Everyone, except for Jerome, who truly understood at the beginning how the rest of the day will go. You took every weapon from him before his motionless body left the trunk of the car. He'll have to get his hands dirty if he's planning to play by your rules - not that he has a choice.

“Yo, bro, what are you doing here?” The boy you once detained from his victim is teasing the homeless while Jerome gets on his feet. He isn't interested in the spectacle of those two components. Instead, he looks around, folds his hands behind his back and looks at the same left story, which you have already examined. His eyes travel down the dusty stairs, clinging to the elongated shadows that devour every inch, just as Gotham consumes the human mind. He also gets stuck in a place that should protect you from the eyes of the participants. Way too long, without any emotion. He doesn't smile, prefers to point his lips as if deep interest is growing inside him. You know that he is only one step away from being bored. The environment doesn't seem like a challenge to him, which also means that it is you who keeps his attention. Your conversation isn't finished yet, not in his eyes and not inside of you. There seems to be something between you that you can't name. However, it does not matter at this moment.  
None of your invited tokens comes up with the mere idea of turning around and walking away, though it could save lives. They all have the opportunity to continue the miserable existence on the streets of politics. But they all seem to want to know why they are in this place. A poor question that makes no sense at all and digs up several graves at once, while nobody talks any more because they are too alien for each other. That's what makes the fascination for you. Watching how everyone rejects the other, even though nobody knows the least about each other. Even in the strangest of situations, Gotham's citizens can't even walk one step closer to one another. Not a single centimetre, because they are enemies somewhere between the built walls of their own prejudice. It's okay with you.  
Waiting and observing are always part of building certain situations, presenting little things that actually have no value. The nagging annoyance in front of the old man and also the happy chatter of two men outside who audibly give more praise to themselves than they should and thus attract all attention. The first step inside is also the last one for you. The businessmen enter the game ground, let your gaze wander to the display where you type in the message for your boss. Persecuted by breathtaking anticipation and a beating heart, you give the command to the beginning and look back to the group, which was put together completely arbitrarily. The only thing they have in common: _Gotham doesn't need them._  
“What..? Is that a joke?” Irritated from all this, one of the well-dressed men starts to speak, looks around, recognizes Jerome and swallows barely noticeable. He has recognized the monster in the room and still retains control because he knows that sudden reactions always have consequences. “What is this here?”  
“I don't know? Contribute to entertainment?” Valeska remains friendly, answers in a playful manner, but at the same time doesn't care at all about the words of his teammates.  
“If you want to play your sick games then do it elsewhere, freak!” But they don't leave him alone. The other businessman hisses his secret doubts, adjusting his glasses as the door slams shut behind them and leaves a loud clatter. You can only shake your head, not able to understand how blind the eyes of upscale society are, even though they are considered valuable. They should have just left. That would have been easier. But most victims tend to like talking and making false accusations without knowing the background. They don't think. The results are situations like these.  
“What is going on?” The girl also speaks up, interferes, although she is not asked. She suddenly seems half as confident as on the street, where she has everything under her control and gets what she wants. The repression of fear succeeds barely, but she finds no other way than to follow the mood trembling. The closed doors have promoted the darkness, making players vague images of their existence. It is a tension that the homeless person silently accepts, keeping his eyes on the ground. In contrast to the others, he sees no sense in the excitement, is too tired of the eternal gestures on the street and too exhausted by the cold that comes with the grey concrete of the buildings. People like him haven't believed in goodness for a long time and he probably doubted that he would be helped from the start. He has come to gain protection from the outside world, no matter how it would end. You are truly sorry for him because many things can throw a person into the streets full of rats and garbage. Especially if the job market leaves no places and generally no one wants to pay more hands than really necessary.  
That's the only sad thing in this room. Because the rest, who either looks around in wonder or waits for more, is exactly right in this place. They are collateral. For you and the city.


	7. Game start!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After some time a new chapter. This time you get more to see of Jerome.  
> I would be happy if you share your thoughts with me!

Darkness licks the silhouettes of your mission, reaches anybody that is anxiously searching for a shred of light and brings you a smile on your lips. Exhausting panic silently floods the room, turning your victims into frightened lambs in their last breath. Some hearts may beat faster, others remain impassive. Characters differ and the journey on the cobblestones of some working routes doesn't contribute to the hardening. Everyone knows how corrupt the streets are and how many can no longer stand the daily sight of dying souls. But just as many have never looked to the side, just look straight ahead without lowering their eyes. They head for their destination with a smile, without noticing the bodies at their feet, whose blood adheres to the firm soles and leaves red marks on red stone. In this room, you have the best examples of both sides. One stays calm because he's crazy enough. Borders were never an obstacle. The other one has nothing left to lose anyway, has already lost hope before you were shaking hands with him. Both are children of Gotham, no different from their fellow players and yet unique.  
Unsteady steps leave behind a discontinuous clack that can be dammed by the boards and at the same time has almost a deafening effect in a breaking silence. Jerome remains peaceful in this situation, bouncing up and down on his soles because he knows better than anyone that this show is far from being his own. He doesn't have to look for you to know that you are in this room, hidden behind shadows that make everything a shade more hopeless. You know it, you can see it in his loose posture and at the same time not. Only the wait remains constant, calls for even more reaction to the assessment.

“What is this shit?” The stray man lifts his arms in the air, has that annoyed expression and cool attitude, underlined by shaking hands and uneven breath. The mood eats away the strands of his self-confidence, which from the beginning was probably no longer than a masquerade. A false representation of his existence, slowly losing his temper and luring him to the door, whose heavy wood just rattles under his shaking. _He can not flee. No more._  
The exit is tightly closed, a fact that he understands and doesn't pay any further attention to. Instead, he heads for one of the windows, hopes for better, but disappoints. The soft tapping of his ankles against the boards begins hesitantly, then becomes more demanding, louder, more desperate. The desire of lightweight plywood splinters on hard oak and leaves no escape. There are only a few exits and they are all on the second floor. Anyone can hit a window and hope, jump, hurt or die for the best. That's the beauty of it. Either you fight to die or you choose suicide.  
Inhaling, you enjoy the fear of your teammates, you strengthen from it because otherwise, you are just as insignificant, like everyone else. Only in moments like these do you have the say, the clear assurance that your existence is indispensable. After all, there must be an opening, a judge and an executioner. Roles that you take on, with pride and certainty, because it can only get better. Better for society and better for you. _The game begins._  
Slow strolling, your gentle steps behind the desperate sighs of others. You emerge from the darkness as if you were a part of it. A materialization of various fears and secret, childish desires. Near the railing is the best position to greet, words which dry up in the throat, because everyone looks upwards. They all recognize their hostess, pierce what they see palpable, leaving a constricted throat and cold sweat. You don't often speak to strangers, not to several, not in such moments, which all point to the end. What remains is a dry swallow that scrapes your throat painfully, before the sound of your voice finds a place between silence and unbelief.  
“Good evening,” you welcome them because kindness is important and because you expect the same behaviour from everyone else. But they don't follow the mood, fulfil a logical expectation that is obvious. Nobody is friendly if you deliberately lock him up.  
“Bitch! You tricked us!” Juvenile recklessness mingles with boiling rage, making the boy yell and freeze at the same time. The thief at his side holds him by the arm, doesn't present a real obstacle, but subconsciously pleads for rest, because she is much cleverer than him and probably knows that you aren't necessarily one of those who can easily get pushed out of the way.  
“What do you want from us? Money?” One of the businessmen tries the simplest of scraps that anyone has ever heard before, but that works less often than thought. With you, he falls on deaf ears, because one can't solve everything with money, even if the politics insist daily on it. People always think of the simplest way and overlook the fact that the world doesn't revolve around paper that has been forced into an imaginary value.  
“I need your help.” You stay open, explain why they really came. Hidden behind the clear planning of what should happen, they get the knowledge they need. “Today we came together in honour of Jerome and my mission.”  
The unbelieving perceptions stick to you as Valeska looks around, smiling. He looks like a child, full of anticipation and at the same time without any enthusiasm. Your presentation doesn't give him any real pleasure, it's just a jump to the challenge that he literally puts at your feet. His voice is subliminal ridicule. “That's me.”  
His testimony lets the street children's breath falter, creeping into every crack of this place. Everyone knows Jerome, only not everyone knows what he looks like. This may have been the benefit of some, but that moment has passed and it is no secret that they are all in one room with at least two killers. You and he are both killers in different ways.

“However,” you mumble a little louder to reach everyone, “you all now have one mission. You are six. Your task is to find a way out of this building as one person. This means that it is easier if you all just kill each other...well...after all that is exactly what I wanted to say. The last one standing gets his freedom back.”  
Soft murmurs spread, squeezing between the teenagers, while the bureaucrats only shake their heads. As if they wouldn't understand, though it is so easy. They don't want to believe it, don't believe it at all, flee unseen into useless rejection. Only one of them remains present, seems to be a thinker between psychopaths and sheep, who has never really negotiated for a life. “Listen, if you want money, just say it. I send you any amount you want. And...if you want some fun...then I'm going to bring you as many players you need. It doesn't have to end this way. I...I am the father of a beautiful little girl and I-”  
“Yes, okay, a loving parent, maybe to pretty to die. Something you hear all day long.” Jerome interrupts him, intervening in a bored tone. A little annoyed, a little effusive with a dismissive gesture, because he hopes for more than a precocious apology, which every prisoner knows by heart. He is right, you understand his reaction, even you expect more than the usual because the conventional seems as if everything is uniformly worthless. Even life.  
“You can't do that! I need to stay alive, I beg you!”  
“Then you just have to kill the others,” you act impassively because it doesn't affect you at the end and because it is exactly as you say. Either he lasts to the end to see Gotham one last time, or he fails. He will die anyway. Either forgotten in an abandoned building or dumped between the garbage bags whose contents are more alive than the victim himself. Of course, that remains a secret. You want a fight for survival and no surrendering figures who are degraded like shadows in the corners because they somehow want to be able to cope with their fate and can't. Some people struggle for every breath every day, pervaded by smoke, dust, and everyday poison just to appreciate the one thing that sets them apart. Men in suits rarely know the problem because they have too much and never enough of everything. There is a lack of real experience, of will, of what mercy will give you because not everyone is a fighter and hardly a madman. “I don't want to be a monster which means that you all get two nice ways of escape. A lead, how I would call it.”  
You slide a hand into your back pocket, grab the two injections Alva gave you and took with you before you brought Jerome to this hotel. The narrow cylinders feel more stable than the ones you usually use. Probably because this madwoman from this chaotic laboratory is interested in the medium. It is therefore not a problem to throw the syringes down on the floor, to put the control of the game in the hands of the participants. They arrive with a clinking sound, chill goosebumps over your body and bring back memories of past considerations. Dark days that you repress because they are unimportant. Only the mission can be in the foreground, together with Jerome, because both go hand in hand. That's why you watch these deadly gifts roll over the wood, making a faint sound that tears the calm in everyone. They don't know what you're giving them and they don't want to believe in the good things in it either. All that remains are discontented looks, attached to stable glass, lost in the content.  
“In those pretty exemplars, you will find something that will help to find a way out. Whoever dares to try it, is allowed to welcome freedom earlier into the arms than the others.” The offer sounds tempting, even you have to admit that because nobody knows what hell could await him in this place. The corridors are creaky, the rooms stuffy and the madness eats through the cracks. Anyone can be consumed, go insane, because fear is one of many triggers for it. Few want to face Gotham when they know they are no better than all the other sociopaths in skyscrapers and suits. Therefore, the mere idea of a way out is well received because the slightly stupid version of the adolescent tramples forward, does not think about the statement of a murderess. He takes one of the injections and leaves the other because he knows that only one is needed. Greed at this point would be the first step to death by someone else's hand.  
Jerome also goes forward, approaches the premature end, lets your heartbeat briefly. To see him die so quickly would be a shame, wouldn't satisfy, since you slowly starting to expect more from him. He's not stupid, twists other people's thoughts on simple questions that need to be rethought far too often to see the truth in them. And that's exactly what you want to see more of.  
Taking the narrow object in his hand, he looks at the content, looks interested, but is unwilling to use it. The syringe simply lingers in his hand as he strolls comfortably back to his place as if you had given firm positions. He knows exactly what he is doing.  
The other one doesn't know.

The naivety of the younger one seems boundless because he actually hopes for a miracle behind the needle that will bring him out of this situation. His thought is not wrong, but neither is it right. Nevertheless, it only takes a moment for the metal of the cannula to find its way through his skin, penetrate flesh and tissue, which will slowly die with each touch. It doesn't take a minute to prove the first effect. Alva would probably be proud of her work at this point, but you want to wait and see.  
Mournful cough spreads, sounds as if he has something stuck in his throat so that every look sticks to his body. Partly disturbed, one-sided apathy, one-sided astonishment. The panicked grip on the neck seems like a desperate attempt to escape the abysses that are slowly spreading through his body and the oxygen only comes wheezed over his lips. Wide eyes and silent words in your direction are just the beginning of a little tragedy in which nobody wants to interfere.  
The veins under his skin swell, appear thick and well supplied with blood. Too strong to hold the liquid. Instead, it collects in the form of small saliva vesicles in the corners of his mouth until gravity pulls it down and lets it pale to the ground. The wood willingly absorbs all life, turns unevenly dark while this boy wants to speak a complaint, but loses all control over it. He continues to cough, swallows several times, cannot stop the blood in his lungs. His pupils move upwards, probably twist unintentionally, want to underline the burning pain in the throat and at the same time invite the last puffs. His body does what he wants, while every effort just seems pitiful. He wants to find a way to breathe by force, squeezes his neck more tightly, baselessly and without clear thoughts. The bubbles collect into foam in shallow pink, stand out clearly from the viscous blood. The feeling in his knees seems to die out, denies further hold and lets him fall, fidget because the fear combines with shock and the nerves panic. Jerks run through his body, making this process look spasmodic and painful until every emotion weakens, until silence finally comes.  
The spectacle made an impression, at least on you, because it has been a while since you saw someone die so passably. It doesn't wake your circulation much, but it makes you happy because Alva is really reliable with her work. Almost everyone in the room holds their breath, not knowing if the show is over. Maybe they expect more strength from the human body, are now shocked by the fragility of flesh and bone. It is the ideal time to refine the way out. “Maybe I should add that those injections won't help you to get out of here _alive_. They just deliver a fast end.”  
“You could have said this earlier you sick bitch!” For the first time in a long period, the girl speaks up, glaring at you evil and at the same time distraught. A little bit like it's your fault that one of them is already dead. But he chose the exit without even thinking about it. Nevertheless, she hates _you_ for what is strikingly reflected in her eyes and still doesn't reach you. You don't have to make friends with a bunch of doomed people, so it doesn't matter whether a thief's childish eyes express pure dislike. All of this is obvious and although it spreads sweat of fear on the skin of some, you can see Jerome nodding approvingly. “A demonstration isn't bad at all. That was informative.”  
“A demonstration? Dude, someone just died!”  
“Happens.” Valeska just shrugs as if it were none of his business. “Those are the things which keep Gotham alive, right?”  
She shakes her head in disbelief as a broad grin creeps on Jerome's face. He is beginning to enjoy the game because he has the kind of people in front of him who have no idea what it really looks like on the cobblestones of this city. They all live in these cages of mind that he can't stand and that he wants to tear down. Besides, he has exactly these kinds of persons as teammates who don't move when someone needs help and Jerome finds his charm in victims like this. He'll kill the girl, you're sure of that. The businessmen will make up for it, you have this hope.

“If we about to die then I will kill you first!” Brave words from trembling lips, which the brat addresses to you because she doesn't understand her situation and clearly overestimates her skills. An ordinary reaction, as acceptance of fate often falls on deaf ears - a little like it says in hero books. Only that there are no heroes in this place and thoughtless suicide is the closest thing to happen. Nothing reprehensible, but incredibly stupid. The nature of man in the broadest traits of an individual.  
“A very nice thought. But I would recommend you all to refer from this. If I die this building will explode. And somebody in here wants to get out of here, right?” A smooth lie that leaves your mouth as if it goes without saying. Sometimes such backlashes are terrifyingly simple, if not always useful. Some flinch, stumble, gasp for air. But the girl isn't listening to you, she is far too sure of skills when she strolls in your direction. She thinks Gotham's alleys made her strong. She doesn't even know how deep the groaning darkness of the side paths goes. She is not aware that there is only blood fertilizer left for the lost souls and she is also not smart enough to think about it. There is no reason to teach her any of the reasons. That's why you are withdrawing, moving away from your guests. The shadow stretches out its greedy hands, makes presence and existence disappear, stretches along the walls to lead you unseen to one of the adjoining rooms.  
Furniture and curtains were left to die, drowning in dust, which keeps them warm in the cold season. Once loved and cared for, the fine wood carvings and decorations are only outdated depictions of beauty. Time never stopped. Nobody could stop the decay and nobody could adapt quickly enough. But that's the run with small hotels that never had a chance and ended up having to leave everything that made them. Musty beds haven't seen life for far too long, besides sheets, the smell of which reflects the weather. Cobwebs run along the corners, appear strikingly white in the dark, which is slowly spreading into the outside world. The last shimmer scratches on the facades of the high-rise buildings, fading in the face of the frosty cold that will embrace every stone. It is the budding blackness that swallows up the last gleam and turns this building into a haunted house. Only that there are no ghosts and most people die because of the concerns of others. _A shame, a bad joke._  
The search for beauty between the city's reflecting windows is futile, lets you breathe in the stuffy air before you turn to an adjacent door. Behind it is nothing more than the tiny area of a cloakroom if you believe the first glance. But fine lines on the back wall reveal a way to getaway. One that you notice and lovingly drive along with your fingertips. Rough wood, bumps, memories of your childhood days because you have been to this place a few times. Too young to truly understand the world. Too bad to honestly doubt. Forgotten because great happiness should have come every day and never came. Sometimes that's the way it is with parents. You only exist because there was no other option and you breathe because there are enough drugs to distract. Both saved you and destroyed you equally. It taught you to keep going, although the fear of suffocation makes every motion deadly. You can live with that. Somehow.

Annoying thoughts, wandering pictures of days gone by, you shake all of that off your shoulders before a hand presses against the spot behind which there is an advantage. It gives in, then pushes itself aside. Hidden in front of the naked eye there are steps down, offer a shortcut that you accept. Quiet, though the wood creaks horribly and scares the rats between the walls as you close the entrance. You know that nobody will notice anything because the house gives the impression of collapsing at any moment. It breathes, the floorboards creak, while the wind outside makes the windows rattle softly. Lots of sounds in which yours fits in.  
At the end of the come-down, there is an elevation in the wall, which is supposed to represent a poorly worked out grip that you take with thanks. Gentle pressure, bright squeaking, help to push the moving part carefully to the side and allow a clear view of the first floor. Somewhere in one of the dark corners where your players can come to the kitchen, hidden between pictures and ugly wallpaper. Each of them is still in place, doesn't move, just breathes. The nerves of some are bare, allowing easy insight into everyone's greatest fear. Absolutely helpless, left behind by death with a task that they don't fully understand. Not every one of them, because Jerome knows the idea behind such experiences. He knows how to play a game.  
“Looks like it's in our hand now. Well then, some ideas for the show?” Carelessly he puts his head to the side, asks a question that obviously doesn't matter. In contrast to him, almost everyone is afraid for their lives, so they cannot join the joy of a psychopath. Nevertheless, he wakes something up, makes sure that the thief turns around and approaches. It is minimally impressive to see how her common sense already gives up. She feels big, feels strong enough not to be afraid of madness. As if she could outdo what Gotham has been doing daily for far too long. _She is naive._ You can confirm that.  
“Shut the fuck up, Valeska! We need to escape!”  
“Oh, but you did hear her, yes?” Mocking, he leans down to her because she is much smaller than him. At the same time, he talks to her as if she were a small child, awkward and terribly one-dimensional because she doesn't see that she will die too.  
“Yes, I did. And?” Who cares? I want to get out of here,” she roars, making even the homeless startle, who hasn't noticed much of everything, it seems. Most of the time he keeps his head down, immersed in thoughts that you imagine more beautiful than life on the street. More colourful, friendlier, with people to whom he once meant something.  
“Of course.” Jerome's voice deepens, reaching out to the stranger like a rough sheet of paper. You can't see exactly what he's doing, but it becomes clear when he raises both hands. “I like you so I'm going to help you.”  
His hypocritical statement is followed by a rapid movement forward to ram the syringe in one hand into the neck of his newly won " _friend_ ". Ultimately, using it on himself has never been an option. He just wanted to have the power to decide who should go faster than the rest. So he helps the girl. He helps her out of this misery because he is a good person, as he may believe. Even if the following scenario resembles a cruel repetition, it doesn't interest him. He neither blinks when she crashes to the ground nor does he pay attention to her when her moan becomes a drowning gargle. You can hear them, feel goosebumps on your body, but you cannot see them because your eyes are on Jerome. _You don't know why, but he fascinates you._

“You're insane!” Shocked cries from the lungs of a man whose suit is probably tailor-made. The situation made him sweat while fear saws through every clear thought. Instead of thinking, he skips the spell of a deadly performance and blindly attacks Valeska. Desperate action, one of many stages that make failure seem within reach. It is no problem for Jerome to avoid the narrow attacks of his counterpart because he is quick and knows how to move gracefully in fitting clothing. You have already been able to experience it yourself, which is why it no longer seems surprising when he grabs the man and pulls him into the mangle. With one arm firmly around his neck, he holds his victim perfectly so that he could break his neck at any time. Strong arms, thoughtful action, your goal knows how to captivate you with mere movements. You can see him squeeze the air out of his new toy. There is hardly any escape in this grip that requires more than wild fidgeting and uncontrolled swearing. Somehow gratifying that he has the upper hand, even if it's reprehensible. You should kill him but enjoy his action instead. Any dead person within these four walls is less of a danger to him. Maybe it would have been better to offer them all freedom if they killed Jerome. But then it wouldn't be the same. It would destroy the effect you usually follow.  
The attacker's painful moans fill the room, sound a little cut off in the thick air that envelops you all. None of the others intervenes, not even the other bureaucrat, who otherwise seemed so familiar with his companion. All that's left is a man's stare, defenceless, unwilling to help. Sad, as you have to confess because sometimes there is hope that it looks different behind the tired facades of the houses than on the worn streets of any tasks. Believe that dies here, makes you sigh because it's sorrowful.  
This brings Valeska to the fore again, arouses your tension when he finally lets go of his opponent. “That is way too easy.”  
Dissatisfaction pours out the tones of his voice, expresses something that you can understand. Hidden behind murky curtains of darkness, it is easy to fathom the layers of his existence. Although he was part of a circus and initially accomplished nothing but the murder of his mother, he thinks terribly tactically. He is smart, not weak, knows how to fight. The rules of society quickly taught him, lectured him how to live among wolves. In this sense, it is more than you initially thought and it will ruin your plan. It breaks off on the edges because your acquired dogs have no chance in this building. That makes them even more worthless than before, useless in every sense and completely replaceable. All of this just makes you more attractive to him, more interesting. After all, you've surprised him before and he's likely expecting you to do it again. But not in this place, not in this game that has already been decided. The result is obvious, for both of you, but not for the others whose blind despair equals false hope. This also means that catching and killing him remains your responsibility. He will play along, certainly. Run away to keep you busy and annoy, to drive you as crazy as the GCPD. Both are annoying and at the same time, it awakens the desire in you. Tingling, like a breath, because it makes everyday life more exciting and the job more interesting. This way of playing could ultimately cost you more than you are willing to pay. If you get lost in all of this, quitting will seem like a mistake. It doesn't make it better, but it is more fascinating.  
To you.  
Just like for him.


	8. His Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan fails slowly while your eyes are fixed on Jerome.

Rigid attention hangs on the remaining figures within these descents, makes waiting turn into forever, because nobody knows which step should be the next. Encircled like sheep, insecurity gnaws at every breath that trickles down your lips. You wanted to play a game in the image of his deeds and didn't see that it takes killers to get close to Jerome. He is better prepared, smarter, and has been taught by the dark corners of Gotham. Unlike the others, whose sense of survival is not compared to murderous lust. _They don't even pique his interest._  
Most of the time he seems to look around listlessly, looking at the dust between cracks and stale air, with the question of whether there is more to it. Tired behaviour from long days and high expectations that remain unfulfilled. Waiting is in everyone's mind, but at the same time, it is exactly what scares them. The atmosphere forces them to separate, to distance themselves from the worst parts of the city, with whom they share life every day without wanting to admit it. The office workers, as well as the homeless, start their search in this sense. One alone, the others interdependent. The belief that they will come out easier if they build a team conceals the obviousness behind the act of not having a chance in the end. Not alone, certainly not for two. At the same time, they lie to themselves that four eyes see more than two and that there may be a loophole that pulls clean fabric indiscriminately through the dirt into freedom. Quite different from the man whose home is the cobblestone streets. He doesn't believe in the naivety of those who have somehow struggled through society over the years. Everyone knows that the way to the top works flawlessly through talent and corruption. You can see it in Halmond's attitude and the power he holds in his hands. Endless threads dance between his fingers, with killers stuck to the ends who celebrate the slaughter festival. Together they could cut his finger, but nobody dares to question the control. Because you are all on the verge of humanity and nobody wants to lose their minds in the tones of strange deeds.  
The homeless person ignores the simple options as he strolls up the steps to get to the rooms you previously occupied for a split second. Ultimately, the whole thing matters to him as much as Jerome. Your planning was a failure, that's for sure. You thought it would be easier. Simple massacre, bloody hands, lost souls in the middle of a world that only exists in this place. None of this applies. In the end, your assignment remains for other hands.  
You withdraw as the businessmen walk in your direction with the pleading expression to find a way out. A sight that seems fleeting, because dead ends are the new forwardings. Because nobody notices the unevenness of the walls and therefore not the place where a hiding place offers protection and maybe offers more than narrow walls and narrow entrances. Instead, they just run past, the glasses wearer swearing softly, the father drowning in doubt but silent. A strange constellation that doesn't save anyone, but neither can entertain.

It is only when they have both passed by that the view falls conspicuously into the centre of the room. Jerome is still standing around, stretching in the face of boredom, as if he had taken a nap. Then he turns around. Jerkily. It surprises you, freezes the pulse briefly and blocks something in the limbs, prevents the saving retreat. He looks closely, stares at you briefly as if waiting for something. Shrugging shoulders express indifference. There is a lot to learn in his eyes, but only an indecisive feeling for you which action to follow.  
“This is quite sad. Could have been better. Wrong plan, wrong idea.” He raises and lowers the voice, gives even the most normal words a touch of madness that you cannot deny, cannot even ward off. He is peculiar, fickle, lets you understand everything and at the same time fills you with strange questions. Answers can be found with him, but are hidden so that a step out of security is unnecessarily helpful.  
“Everyone starts at some point. Not everything tends to work out as planned,” you tell him because you have the feeling that you need to give him a reason. After all, this scenario is not worth his death and Jerome is right when he says you can do better.  
“The start wasn't bad at all, but...you are not the boss.”  
“Not behind all this, no. I like to follow instead of taking on the chaos on my own.”  
“No wonder that you chose _this_ for a first.” He raises his hands, turns slightly to the sides, and presents the place in a delicate manner that is used for this show. Unlike you, he knows how to bring the environment to the fore and at the same time not lose sight of anyone. No matter whether small or large, he presents everything. Only that you don't want attention, you're not looking for a catastrophe on the streets, from which escape is like a child's catch. That's the problem. The police would be a disruptive factor in this house, every second, with every word they say in the supposed sense of justice. Besides, your boss would not tolerate dirty, conspicuous work. Improvisation is required for such cases, but it no longer has a place in this unsuccessful idea.  
“If it's okay for you I'm going to kill you slowly and painfully the next time I get a chance...and I promise, I'm going to do it in my way without trying to bring you some happiness with something that reminds of a circus.”  
“A circus! That would be a personal start.”  
“Close. We swap the curtains with bloody sheets and borrow some sharp throwing knives with which I can trace every scar on your face.”  
He drops his hands and puts on a big smile that looks unnatural due to his scars. “That sound bad. Is there more?”  
“I'm going to think about it while you try to get out of here. We still have some participants and everyone has a chance.” A lie that runs almost ridiculously through the conversation. But he just ignores it.  
“How boring,” his complaint is drawn out, expresses the dusty enthusiasm that secretly troubles him, ”the dirty work without any entertainment has always been the best work for everyone but me. For the GCPD for example.”  
A sigh on your lips, disinterest in sight. You shouldn't care about his fun. So the retreat remains for you and the loneliness remains for him. There is something childish about his behaviour, which also reflects the seriousness and brief clarity in subtle nuances. He doesn't give the impression that he would attack when you close your eyes because it would rob the charm. His playful chaos builds the climax of his day. All the other hours are thoughtfully regulated, spontaneous and at the same time carefully thought out. He can live insanity and at the same time act like a reasonably normal man. Even if it's only in sleep.  
Despite everything, an uncomfortable gut feeling remains, expressing distrust and secret fear. Not because you can barely assess his actions. It's worse than that.  
There is something about Jerome that makes him interesting. And interest in bottomless madness has never been healthy.

Most of your victims scream and beg for hypocritical mercy, hoping for useless seconds when they can't even think clearly. Sometimes they even act cool and relaxed but start to sweat when you tell them how you're going to kill them. He doesn't do either. Jerome pushes the words away as a pleasure, searching inwardly to see if there is anything in for him. His crazy side is something from Gotham that is too well known on the streets and you can't help but find favour on that side. Perhaps because it is everything that has always made you feel that you are still reasonable, even though not everything is exactly in line with you. Valeska, on the other hand, is a ray of hope and at the same time a hurdle because this feeling requires more attention than it deserves. Sympathy also makes killing difficult.  
For a brief moment you lower your eyelids, you can feel Jerome's gaze in the back, although the wall between you two is firmly closed. A shiver is felt on the skin, licks over every cell and leaves a tingling sensation. In his expression lies the madness that drives him and at the same time completely differentiates him from all things. He is free because he doesn't have to commit to anything. There is almost nothing left in him that characterizes him mentally as a person, except for the pain, which may have made him what he is now. You don't know, but it is obvious what happens when the rage breaks out under daily agony. Before you know it, the path is paved with corpses, the silence of which seems incredibly peaceful. Calmness returns and for the first time you hear your wishes, which were believed to be suffocated under pressure and pain. A bad day is enough to flip the switch and where there is a start, there is also a range of activities towards others who have always been there somehow but have never had any value. You feel better, for a brief moment full of joy and then it gets worse. It gets strange because awareness mentions that you have taken a life and still have no regrets. In these seconds, the question remains as to whether humans are really simply tamed monsters, born in flesh and blood, disguised as something that shouldn't be. You don't know that either, you can only say that in its own way it is a disaster that consumes you and feeds on what others call emotions. You fill this hole with blood. Because blood has a calming effect.

You repress the idea that your actual victim may not think very much differently at a certain level, and you retreat to the room where the secret passage begins. There is nothing to get here except forgotten memories that you don't want to listen to. The playing pieces in this field are more important, which is why the room moves into the shade in just a few steps. The wood on the upper floor groans with every movement, reveals everyone and nobody at the same time. On the other hand, there are steps down that lead to the lower hall, right in front of the kitchen. A path that you lightly follow, lost in thought, until the empty tiled walls whisper a greeting. Probably the employees have already recognized that every way out is closed, so they just followed another direction because they don't want to admit the hopelessness in every corner. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, it's just a vain detail in a pointless presentation. Nevertheless, you stride into the room, let your gaze wander because no caution seems sufficient.  
For a moment this room is completely peaceful, swaying in the breaking darkness that devours all light. The sun has set and the result is disappointing. Nobody stabs one another, nobody seems lost between the doubts of wrong ideas and somewhere far away you can even hear the birds singing, although they only show up on the worst days of the city. In breaths like this, none of this looks so horrible.  
But then reality comes back with an honest expression and surprises you at the moment of carelessness. The murderous presence of your backers almost drips from the walls, making the air icy and the oxygen scarce. They want to smear your blood on their hands, persuading themselves that they did it for everyone, even though you warned them. This ignorance is terrifyingly sad on many levels. You thought they were smarter. But they disappoint, simply pitifully hope for the best, instead of putting their head to it. As if they had a deal with death itself. Insane, because nobody wants Gotham's decayed souls for themselves. And yet they attack.  
One grabs from behind pulls you towards him with force and presses his forearm against your neck. Defence seems futile in the first sense, makes the dance of short consensus almost seem easy. Then a warm breath on your ear disgustingly wet with exuberant anger. You are given a chance. “Bring us out of here.”  
Calmness spreads, attaches itself to everybody. You put your hands on his arm out of reflex alone, knowing that he won't act as long as the exit remains closed. A simple strategy that everyone knows and nobody can rethink. Because there are many methods to get out of it all and since Jerome can no longer be killed in this game, your reluctance is on another table. They no longer have to stay alive to benefit. This security has passed. You can defend yourself.  
Defending is one of the things that will be on every list for life. Because self-protection is saving and because nobody helps just because there are problems. You have understood this aspect at an early age, learned it to protect yourself from the wild blows of days gone by. Something that also helps in your job. Often enough.

Your backing man doesn't look like the guy who knows how to break someone's neck right away, which is why his actions would change into strangling to end a life. An advantage because it saves time.  
His irrelevant question thus meets with deaf rejection but puts every movement of his friend in the foreground. He seems to be on the lookout for the second monster in the house, which can be deadly if someone gets in his way. It also means that he misses the actual show. You use it.  
Lowering from his arms, one grip back is enough to startle the stranger. At the same time, you raise a leg, letting your foot step with its heel on his. He flinches, the pain eats through his body, lets him move closer to you. Leaning forward slightly so that your fingers reach his short hair, get caught in it and gently pull his head forward. Resistance breaks out because he doesn't want to follow, but remains in vain because you are in control. His compulsive hug loosens, wants to consolidate again, but has no chance. You let go of the soft strands, push yourself away from him, break out of his hold. A quick turn, a look at his face, startled astonishment on the features of the glasses wearer. He barely notices the next grip on his arms, sucks in the air sharply as you pull it towards you. Just because you are a woman doesn't mean that you have to be weaker than a man. You prove this theory to him, ram your elbow into his face, hear the unpleasant crackling of his nose and the smacking of blood that runs in thick lines down his skin and drips to the floor. Dizziness spreads in his posture, makes him sway, choke out a cry, without paying attention. His accomplice looks petrified, has turned to you, looks pale around the nose. He wants to help but hesitates. He's a man, a father if you want to believe his words, but he's a coward. Probably all the red spots are enough to spill the panic in him, just to chase him away. He obviously doesn't care about escaping if he has to pay for it himself. He won't help because he's one of the city's soft cores that are only alive because they have made strong friends.  
You just hurt one of them, scratching his ego with it. He doesn't want to give up. He lets go of his bent nose, rushes towards you without a plan, as if he could just run you over because he has the strength to do so. An act of hopelessness, for which there is no sympathy because desperate people are always the worst. So a simple step to the side, timing the right moment, and holding on to one of his arms is all it takes to pull him down. He turns in your direction, wants to find security, wants to kill, but he sinks deep enough to fail. Your fingers find their way back into dishevelled hair and tear his head back. A noticeable inhalation fills your lungs with oxygen, with an embarrassing irony in doing something that shouldn't happen from the start. Maybe it had just been inevitable. It could be anything. Loses its value when you smash its head onto the edge of the kitchenette in the middle of the room. Resistance presses through the impact, causing uncertainty to sprout. Is one-hit enough? The answer comes when he groans, groping along the cupboard with his fingertips. Once more you jerk his head back, to hammer it on the edge again. Blood collects on the wood, drips into the cracks at the feet. His legs give way, no longer hold him, so you let go too. The look follows him, recognizes the bloody indentation in his forehead. Motionless, passed out, because people aren't so easy to kill. Nobody will save him anyway. Death is his last companion.  
Looking back at the door, it is certain that his friend has fled. He has run away, prefers to hide rather than die himself. Thankfully, you bend down to the dead one, looking at what little can be seen in the dark. Things that seek refuge in the shadows don't deserve attention. A soft farewell in thought takes up the room, finally lets this child of Gotham rest. Mercy is better than a slow death, which he may not deserve in the end. At the end of the day, you don't know him, which crushes every right of friendly torment.  
Final perceptions examine the act afterwards, see how your leg rises. He won't notice it, he won't feel it. Security is there. Then you kick in full force, hit his neck, hear it break under your soles and feel the supposed hardness of his bones, which give way shortly afterwards. A quick step to the end that you can agree with yourself. _However, it doesn't make it quieter._  
The silence wants to take its place again when a shrill longing cracks a hole in the atmosphere. The sound is reminiscent of a splintering window, chasing deep unrest through the bones. Maybe it was Jerome.  
Your legs take a course towards the stairs without asking, leaving bloody facades in the kitchen, the importance of which has nipped in the bud. A man's scream had been so close that the place of his torture can only be the first room on the first floor. The thought makes sense, makes the hurry appear more present. Overwhelming when the eyes get stuck on the door, which only a crack separates life from transitory existence. The heart beats to the neck, reminds you that your job will end when Valeska finally disappears from the scene. Stopping and careful actions are therefore becoming less and less important every second so that the path passes over the barrier without a stop and shows Jerome in front of broken glass in the dim light of the street lamps that secretly slip into the room.  
“What..?” You don't know what to say because it doesn't look like there was a fight for survival. Everything seems to be in perfect order and only the frame shows cracks, while the window itself is completely ruined.  
“Well, this doesn't look like a way out.” He turns on the heel in your direction and looks a little disappointed with what just happened. A masquerade like it couldn't be better. “Could have been charming.”  
“You're not trying to tell me that you threw him out of the window to find out if it is dangerous, right?!” Disgusted words glide indignantly over your lips because the anticipation for an end bursts with them and moves further into the distance. At the same time, it kind of irritates you because you speak to Jerome completely unattached. He simply makes every situation surreal.  
“I didn't throw him. I helped. There is a difference.”  
“Who was it?”  
“The homeless. You know, the wildcard to test some meaningful attractions. You didn't really think that he could kill me, am I right?” He represents the failed planning more confident than it ever was. Contrary to what he expected, you assumed that everyone would be able to kill Jerome Valeska. Somehow. He has now thrown one of these “ _hopeful possibilities_ ” out of the window like a sack of flour and you don't need to look out to know that he is dead.

“Looks like you are the key,” says Jerome, lures you out of your thoughts and leaves you standing there. He is getting closer and any retreat would express weakness in those seconds. Therefore, the attempt at strength that is lacking is present and the attempt to stay relaxed turns out to be difficult because the pulse races through the veins a little faster with each breath. You don't want to be infected by him and his twisted nature, that's for sure, but at the same time, something inside doesn't want to escape either. He is too interesting as that running away would bring any satisfaction.  
“Maybe, maybe not.”  
“Ah, typical for liars.” His steps are long, leading you exactly where they are supposed to stop. He comes too close and somehow not close enough. The madness tingles noticeably on the skin but doesn't penetrate the mind. Your eyes cling to green irises, so clear and penetrating that it is difficult to believe that something madly is behind all of this. But that's exactly what he is and with this, he bends to your ear. Overwhelming closeness takes up the narrow space between you, the shallow contact of your hair with his skin. The smell of blood clings to him and at the same time, it is covered by a pleasant aftershave that arouses inner desires that are crazier than Jerome himself. “This show was a disaster, even for someone like you. There is so much more behind your eyes.”  
He has nothing more to say, takes an upright position again and giggles slightly, unusual for a man, a laugh, so suppressed and yet like a constant sound in your head. Far from lovable, the pure depiction of depravity, because the tones appear so terribly shaky and almost too high. At this moment the delusion seems to seize him. But that's all. He neither plans a murder nor does he seem particularly interested in all the other things. Between the limitless things you imagined, you became the prime blooming attraction in his eyes. Not the best result. Good enough, however, to scare Jerome away. What he sees in you doesn't hold him, lets him stroll by while stiffness clings to your joints. Motionless how the loneliness remains in this room and is accompanied by the cool air of the outside world. With the smell in your nose and the playful words in your ear.


	9. Follow him

You don't understand what he means by the look in your eyes and it seems disturbing not to have an insight into his twisted thoughts. But judging by his behaviour, he can allow himself to do this. Just like that. He comes across uneasily, telling things that sound captivating and don't want to make sense anywhere at the same time because they don't fit into the overall picture. The mind of a person shows boundaries that shouldn't be crossed and yet, Gotham always lures to the other side full of psychopaths and lost souls of justice. Predatory words whose existence resembles a myth. They are just there and enfold the senses like a drug as if the world would leave less red traces behind inaccurate frosted glass. Captivating and scary at the same time, as you have to admit because he does something to you that cannot be understood. It's no secret that his manic side is attractive, but you shouldn't forget that this human mess is your job. A clearly defined mission that dances happily on everyone's nose, knowing that no one can beat it. He is aware that you are weaker too, somehow, in a way that shouldn't exist. That's the problem. Unsteady uncertainty that bites into the bones and stiffens the joints over the years, so that every emotion seems too slow and every thought too ridiculous. Consuming and terribly captivating, but always there. Probably because it's secretly inside of you. In your eyes, as he said. Maybe he's right. There is also a beast slumbering in you, begging for freedom and no more than trying to escape in this tired area full of sad characters with no home or destination. Lost in the streets, welcome to the shadows.  
You should be thankful because you can feel calm, live a life of freedom. Surrounded by chains that are already an eternal habit, there is no reason to want more than there is. True freedom is a leap to death. You see that again and again and, astonishingly, so many think they can outsmart the trick of life. Reprehensible wishful thinking that you keep evading. In your murderous life, there are no friends who can die, no police sanctions. Nobody knows you, nobody turns around for you. You are a picture on the city walls, inconspicuously hidden between thousands of faces that nobody will ever recognize. Completely lonely in the streets, jealous of the petty criminals and this considerable naivety that you make fun of because they all have no future. Sometimes you'd like to share this blindness. Gotham could be beautiful, even if the darkness eats through the cracks and leaves nothing but painful grief. At least then the reflections on the panes of the way too high buildings would promise distraction and nothing would be dangerous, depressing any more. A lot would be forgotten. The murders, the violence. The fact that you too have no future in this place. Because a killer is no better than the dirt on the tire profiles of old rattling boxes. This is sad general knowledge since you first saw the world in the dirty red light. Conscious and disturbing, because everything else was previously a fairy tale. Adorable and indestructible, bright and friendly. Neighbours greeting, children playing, sighing voices, tired eyes. The looks of the adults had always been different. Strange because every year brought teaching. Or thousands. Or death. Things you didn't see because you were the princess of your world, ultimately kidnapped from home. The _happy ending_ was moving away every hour. Nobody ever came to get you, even when the snow turned red. You remember it. Every second from the moment you found a place in the car.

Back then everything looked so good, so upright, so fitting in a child's playful imaginations. A cosy home with arguing parents, as was common in a family. The early years of school were a refuge, hidden in a place where stories reached up to the ceiling and big eyes unwittingly asked questions that one simply forgets over time. Including relief for you when your friends reported the argument in their own home because you knew that you were not alone. As a child, it was just like that. There was nothing you could do, especially when you were nine and always thought that the small cracks in the mirror of life were normal. But your glass broke one night when your father came in and woke you up.  
“Away,” he had said when uncertain words tore the silence of darkness. A little trip to prove mom that he had value in this family and knew very well how to take care of her. There was an internal lack of understanding, but you loved him and it was easy to help because you were there to help your parents when they needed a hand. Back then, in your world, there was no difference between right and wrong. Not like this.  
Your journey started that evening, together with your father, in the car, for several miles. The memory of how you looked out the window is still there, showing blurry willows and wet asphalt. It had been raining. Drops ran thin webs on the window, directed all attention in a direction that made breathing melancholic. As if all these strange places weren't that strange. Not as scary as the inconsistent pounding in your chest that made you regret the decision. Maybe because you could perceive the pungent smell of alcohol in the car and your heart was beating much faster than it should have. The sweat beads on the forehead of the man who had been there sometimes and then not, reflected his fear. The same one that slowly emerged in your chest. _Until the train station in your idyllic city._  
If you close your eyes and think back, you can still feel the warm skin of his hands through your gloves. Little blue gloves that were supposed to keep you warm, but still felt useless.  
 _Then everything went very quickly._  
Only one train should lead to the goal, take each of you to where the smoke acts like a drug that forces you to stay. A selected train that started shaking in motion. The scenario of the outside world became more captivating, fascinating and visually destructive, on a path that kept the limbs bumpy until you could get a foothold on a crowded platform. At that point, you had no idea that Gotham wouldn't let you go. It also seemed strange that the next four months, full of gambling and drugs, would entice groaning women into your father's arms. A loud voice, beating behind closed eyes, more alcohol than a single person could handle. During this time, the princess resembled a beaten dog, abandoned by the gods and forgotten by everyone else. Every day, a little more, until the beatings didn't hurt anymore. Until the bruises became part of you. Until this heavy firearm was within reach and you pulled the trigger. The bang was deafening, you could hear it through the stinky wool hat, feel the pain but not respond. Red liquid oozed from one part of his jacket. Pearls that slid to the ground. The snow at your feet soaked it all up. The blood, the suffering, your hate and also your future. Maybe the question of when winter had come and how you could leave Gotham behind you too.  
You tried to escape, but everything behind the thick fog of this city's fires looks like a place you don't belong to. Not alone. Not as a murderer.

Gently shaking your head, the memory blurs in the depths of perception, the game moves back into the light of the important. This room still envelops everything that Jerome left. He did it with a smile on his face, soaked with old blood and boredom, and you know that a lot more work has to be done to kill him now. The homeless is dead, and the rest of these wildly chosen characters didn't do any better than choosing the wrong decisions. One of them may still be alive, but will not help anyone, will surely be hiding in the corners of the unknown. That is why you turn, take small steps out the same path that led into it. In the end, the plan is still on your side. Jerome cannot run away, cannot jump through locked doors and locked windows. He is caught just like the grains of dust on the shelves of the remaining furniture.  
Your gaze wanders over the ground, the railing on the upper floor, over every hall and every crack. No blood, nowhere, as if no one had ever been in this descent. Only in the lower area, where the insane idea of dumb actions has started, you can see the remains of the former assistants. Two syringes created a mess, split the rest of them. One outside the house on the pavement, one drowned in blood on the wood of the kitchen, one living as a prop in the shade. Valeska is also wandering somewhere, probably, you don't know, you can only hear him. Carefree steps, a happy whistle, a short giggle. The environment is sympathetic to him in an abstruse way, it seems. Although there is nothing here, he discovers charming features in what used to be. It was entertaining until he fell silent and only the creaking of the floor panels remained. Followed by a rattle on the rear door, a cracking of unstable hinges. There's no way out, you told them. Every method remains guarded by men who won't give way before you say so. But nobody adheres to the rules. That has always been the problem.  
A bunch of keys is noticeable at the front entrance, tinkles treacherously and unlocks the door so that anyone who is locked up could go. You didn't say anything, just waited and hoped that everything would go according to plan. _It doesn't, you noticed that early on._ A shame. But doesn't explain the error in the resolution. Your hands are scanning all pockets and you cannot find the cell phone with which the commands become relevant. A short sigh brushes your lips, rolls your eyes. Novice mistakes.  
Jerome must have taken it when he got so terribly close, almost hypnotizing your body, as if it was made for nothing but pleasure and desire. You didn't even feel his hands and only the thought of his quick dexterity makes your skin tingle. He could have done anything. A knife between your ribs or a pistol near your liver.  
Anything would have been possible and it was choked with sexual desire because his gaze effortlessly dampened every feeling.  
You start to fail.  
That's all, just not helpful.

The chance of victory diminishes every second and you have to make up for the lost time that runs like sand through your hands and decays in nowhere. A stupid fact you see while your legs are already in full movement. You run across the upper hall, down the groaning stairs, to the smeared kitchen, where the rear exit can be found. The door is wide open, the wood has a brittle dent. You can see the splinters sticking out as if they would like to slide under the skin of someone and want to draw attention to themselves with every movement. Striking how this little thing comes into focus, doesn't matter and still exists. You have always had an eye for the little things because you create pictures out of them. Images that get lost in this place because they represent nothing more than any mistake that has slipped into the primitive basic ideas of a game. All of this looks so horribly inconsiderate that you can hardly believe how naive you have been, knowing that Jerome is everything but stupid.  
Turning around the corner is a stumbling block, drops you, pulls you to the ground. A painful fall, the burning sensation of how the asphalt tears over the skin, takes it as a tribute and tears it up. Scratches start to bleed. It’s nothing special. It will heal. More important is the desire to know what caused the fall, which directs your gaze backwards. You can see a completely tattooed head with a small hole in it. Empty eyes, a thin trickle of life that sticks to his brows. Valeska must have disarmed and shot him because he is also aware that time is not eternal. Probably a quick offence, because he finally wants to follow his ideas and this bouncer just stood in the way. Jerome has plans and delays are less well received by him. _Still, his actions are an obvious problem._  
This job killed one of Mister Halmond's men, which means that if you don't do something positive right away, the consequence will hit you. So all that is left to do is get up, knock off damp dirt on your clothes and start running. Where the alley leads a path into the dark. He can't possibly go anywhere else because his face is known by to many and he's already bored enough. Even more planned chaos would only be a burden. Your last participant no longer plays a role in this sense. He will die before the thoughts of that evening can be forgotten.  
As fast as the joints allow, you run down the street, feel the sting in your lungs and the swelling pain in your side. It bites through the tissue, leaves the legs numb and the skin feels terribly cold. Deafness spreads, is ignored. You don't stop to savour every sensation, instead turn around the corners of brick walls, at the same time suppressing the need to shout his name because he wouldn't respond anyway. The breath comes only intermittently over the lips, makes the breathing sound whistling. Oxygen is scarce because the smoke is somehow thick and inconsistent. A charm of the winding paths, as one might say.

When the next curve passes, peppered with broken stone and white chalk on the floor, you stop. Abruptly because the body sometimes switches faster than the mind.  
In front of you is one of those guards who are eating out of Mister Halmond's hand – also shot because he is worthless in Jerome's eyes. This time, however, he didn't run away, is still there, stands in front of the septum and draws lines with one finger on inhabited walls.  
A little closer, steps in his direction, trying to see what exactly he is doing. There is dark blood on his gloves, which he smears into a strange little picture that looks like it belongs to a toddler. He's not really talented, but the feeling that it represents something of his childishly messed up character is noticeable.  
“They were two. You could have said this.” His gaze wanders towards you, eyeing the figure from top to bottom as he puckers his mouth. You don't know what is going on in these seconds, but you can't just rush forward and kill him. He holds one of the guns in his hand, his index finger on the trigger, but he doesn't aim anywhere. Valeska just stays calm, waits, with little patience. “No response?”  
“What do you want to hear? Sorry that my attempt to murder you failed so miserably?” you mumble, really not sure what would be the best. The situation is strangely twisted and every reaction in front of him seems useless. That's why you look at him more intently.  
He is well dressed for being a serious criminal who emerged from the next best circus attraction. In this city, the bad guys love fine clothes. Maybe because they see themselves as businessmen and gangsters. Style plays a role in every negotiation, you have understood that much over the years. Even his red hair somehow has its charm, sticking up, exposing the sides and face. Quite handsome, clearly forbidden.  
“No, that would be boring.” Jerome continues to turn in your direction, still staring, and you can't help but hold his gaze unintentionally. Because there is simply no way to look in a different direction. His eyes captivate you like those of a big cat catching prey. There is grieving life in them, blooming madness that is so much more joyful than drawing lost pictures for the GCPD that they will not understand in the end. A waste of time, it seems, but still fitting, in every situation, he conjures up. Valeska just has something you don't have. Perhaps true freedom because he knows that there is still a lot to go on. The horizon is not a limit and Gotham is not a city where a mind is rewarded. Here everyone is driven by interest, followed by murder and homicide. A tempting back and forth that you observe every day but don't take part in. Your senses are important to you, but loosening the chains a bit is not an offence. Discovering the world beyond the limit is what you want. You want to be able to say once that you really know what it looks like out there. Among psychopaths and sociopaths. Between those who bring life between the walls.

“Take me with you,” you breathe out of mental reflex, not knowing why it feels so connecting. It just comes across the lips as if it were the only right decision. “I'm not done killing you yet. I guess you still have some space in your gang full of great maniacs.”  
“Why should I allow you to be part of my ' _gang full of great maniacs_ '? Can you do some … tricks?” Jerome leans forward with interest, giggles, looks at you with anticipation, while one of his hands is still painting traces on the forgotten walls of Gotham. Something in him is moving, which is mischievously reflected in his eyes.  
“If we look closer at it, then there is no reason for you to go with me. But if there is no reason, where is the sense in your plea?” Irritated, he pulls back a little, wiggles his head back and forth, producing a subtle, throaty laugh. Now you entertain him even though you don't want to. With every second, the madness in him becomes more constant and although running away might be the best option, you don't move. The heartbeats and the nervousness suddenly appears completely present. “You are crazy to make a request to a madman. How senseless! I like that even though it would have been funnier if you would have begged for your life. But wait … no, it's better like this. Already seen that too many times. Change is good. That makes you good.” His laughter echoes through the dirty alley, falls silent before he looks at you gloomily. “You didn't say this to trick me, right?”  
“Did anyone ever had success in tricking you?”  
“No!” He laughs again, pauses, grimaces in a strange face. “Or maybe yes? I can't remember. Whatever. So, what's your name?”  
“You can choose one,” you sigh because his mood swings seem fascinating and scary. All you have to do is wait while your eyebrows rise. Your real name isn't important here because it makes you vulnerable, almost too human for this man. You're not like Jerome, you're not insane enough for it. He seems to see it, grinning broadly the smile of his Glasgow style. You are nothing more than a simple toy for him.  
“Oh, how about Pale? Pallid and colourless like your answers. Or Venom? Yes, let's take Venom. Show me if you're toxic!”  
So Venom, your name in his eyes and everything you have to prove to him. Slowly and disgustingly, you should get under his skin, poison him, let him die, very slowly, in a really cruel way. It's a mystery whether this is really feasible, but you nod, agree, because it's okay. Any way will show, that much is certain.  
“Good, Venom. Whatever you want.”  
“Great!” He shouts, way too loud, too enthusiastic in front of an audience that doesn't exist. Just a single word before he calms down, looks around and takes a path. Serene, completely relaxed, as if he were bulletproof. “Let's see how the new hideout is. We should have everything we need.”


	10. Coming together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so we reached 10 chapters and there is still nobody who has something to say. That is kind of frustrating. I hope you guys will leave a comment or two for me because uploading to silence is not much fun.   
> If it comes down to this, I can stop as well and that would be pretty sad. I know I'm slow at translating, but that doesn't change the fact, that I really try with this story.

Following him, your gaze clings to his shoulders hidden under the grey fabric and light upholstery that is too expensive for the street and too cheap for the upscale. Taut textile on tight muscles, the knowledge that every man in this city has so much more than he wants to show. Always an ace up the sleeve, printed with the secrets of unknowing enemies. Jerome moves gracefully, delicate, as if he belongs to the upper class of the city, although he started from below and will always stay there. Because people don't accept work and madness as an ascent. His steps remain lively, full of anticipation for the hiding place, the existence of which will be a new puzzle for the GCPD, because it isn't in this district, but it doesn't look that much better. Buildings pass you in unpopular grey, barracks decrease, the ugly beauty increases. Just like no other, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder and ultimately doesn't exist. Nevertheless, the image takes you away from broken windows and forgotten homes, leads you to the heart in the midst of industry and chaos.  
Between dilapidated alleys and silent voices of the raging society, the goal is a home big enough to house almost every homeless person. A pushy stone mansion, reddish-brown, with a reflective front that seems far too big for an individual's life. An unjust sight, pompous behaviour of prestige of an elevated.  
“Who's living here?” Your voice seems out of place, has a toneless touch that you don't know. Probably because you are talking to Jerome, a killer who stops at nothing and still draws his lines to steer the madness in the right direction.  
“We do,” he replies shortly, folding his hands behind his back, slowing down a little so that you catch up. Previously, his back was the constant reflection of the distraction, demanding distance, which is now decreasing. Stopping is out of the question, however, because it would be too dangerous and conspicuous to look for answers that don't apply in the middle of anywhere. You are his poison, you should crawl under his skin like the needle of a syringe, so you have to be close to him. Easier than expected as it turns out because the gap makes your heart beat faster. Shaky behaviour is part of the whole, a result because its mere existence encounters miserable misunderstanding. This is all because you are now on the same side and he doesn't appear to want to kill you. So walking alongside him is not a problem, as if it were perfectly normal. He's not the first killer to give escort on the cobblestone streets.

“Who lived here before?” You start the conversation again after hesitation, waiting for the right information that is somewhere on his lips.”Who had to die for this?”  
“Oh, nobody important, really. Just some old, rich men who wanted to help.” Jerome doesn't even look at you, doesn't care what someone else's reaction is. Maybe because he knows that his testimony reveals nothing more than a charming break-in and a mountain full of corpses. In fact, only one of many minor matters in his life that doesn't appear to be a further nuisance.  
His eyes are fixed on the door that you both head for, leaving the staircase almost winged behind you. The steps seem to chase their cold under your soles through your bones. Disinclined, scaring and not very warm. The property looks unfriendly, not nearly like the things you will find inside. Rattling icy, as if you could freeze to this place and nobody would notice. That leaves only the furtive look at the companion, whose profile is handsome despite the scars. _Somehow_. You find it interesting because otherwise only the same boring expressions can be found on people's faces. It's different with him because there's a lot more to it and you can't say what it is.  
The attention slides forward again, allows no further distraction, forces you to observe how Valeska simply grabs the knob of the door and pushes it inside.  
 _He enters, you follow._  
The entrance unfolds before you, awakening strange sensations between clinical cleanliness and dusty history as if someone were living in this place and yet didn't exist. Paintings adorn the rough wallpaper of the walls, hidden under a layer of dirt that makes everything look cloudy and perishable. The people who lived in this place must have a long family tree full of secrets and fraud. The way you know it from Gotham.  
“Oh, this is something I would consider charming!” Jerome likes what he sees, gazing across the room dividers as his step grows livelier with every step. You perceive all of this, under clinking chandeliers that don't move and yet ring in your ears like bright bells. Refracting light reaches inside. The origin is unknown, because it is dark outside, far too late for invitations outside the home. Shadows run across the walls, seize the souls of forgotten bodies and devour them. Maybe the light comes from the dim street lights. A strong brightness that hardly comes against the dark. But in the end, that's not what fascinates, because Jerome bends around one corner, takes you to a dining room that is as big as the entire police station. A table in the middle, dark wood, dark tablecloth, wine glasses with sharp edges. It was made for all of you as if they knew that you would also come.  
“We waited for you. You are plenty late!” Jervis Tetch is the first to make himself known, sitting well-dressed in a good manner in his chair. He puts on a smile, seems to be happy about the arrival of the last. “A lovely young lady. Looks like entertainment.”  
“Entertainment?” You growl questioningly, uncertain of his plan, while Jerome just goes on. He strolls to the table, settles on one of the seats, takes a deep breath, while your words get stuck in the room unnoticed.  
“Yes, because there were only two opportunities. Live or die. It seems you managed to step into the area of living. That's what you call luck.”  
“I'm here to kill Jerome, not to enjoy some nonsense,” you murmur, cross your arms over your chest and take your eyes off Tetch because every word sounds like a lie. The view sticks to Crane, puts him in the spotlight. He doesn't talk, doesn't move, just sits there in silence. Similar to a scarecrow - which he seems to be playing permanently - a simple doll, he sits there and doesn't say anything. Nothing.  
“We know.” Jervis, on the other hand, has heard you, replies the pitiful voice that escaped from your throat. You don't want to ask for the reason behind his knowledge.  
“You shouldn't have parked your car so strikingly. Except it was your plan to get noticed. In this case, you did a wonderful job.” Valeska turns slightly in your direction, grinning delightedly. He seems blissful in this place and at the same time, he doesn't fit into this picture of noble calmness.  
“You should sit down. Dinner will be ready soon and we need to celebrate our new hideout!”  
You don't bother to answer, just obey reluctantly, somehow sit next to Jerome. You don't care how dangerous it is. The palpitations in your chest are the problem, robbing a large part of the concentration, forcing you to his side. Your job as poison underlines this confusing decision, which you simply cannot regret.

Waiting, you don't participate in the conversation that Tetch and Valeska are leading. Fragments of foreign ideas roll over the floor slabs of the room, meet with inner disinterest, while own thoughts are attached to Mister Halmond. You will have to explain the circumstances to him, from start to finish, pleading that the weary looks of his men don't awaken. How this should work isn't clear because everything could go wrong without a single sound coming from your throat. This man built his empire in Gotham on corpses, doesn't tolerate mistakes, even if it's the first time. Forgiveness doesn't exist for him, nor does honesty for you.  
In the background you can hear Jervis cheerfully speaking his verses, only a distracted hum coming back from Jerome. They make a plan, full of holes and not very sophisticated. They don't name it by name, just explain that it's time for a little more fun in this city full of machines that are permanently controlled by outside influences. What kind of pleasure they will choose remains a vague guess that deserves no attention. From personal experience, it is easy to say that there are more options than people in the world to bring joy to society. Bloody ways, screaming people, revenge for everything wrong in this place. Everyone has a story, a reason to love madness and at the same time to refuse it sharply. Knowledge of hearsay, television reports and insiders who would do anything for money. Basics that everyone knows about everyone. The men in this room alone are an open storybook full of wrong decisions that you can count on both hands because they are so small.  
Jervis lost his sister because James "Jim" Gordon, a GCPD dog, got in the way. The memory of it is vague because there is only moderate interest, but Tetch loved her, sincerely. Too much. He treated her like the beloved among thousands of women and inflicted her suffering that turned death into a gentle journey to no man's land.  
Jonathan Crane, on the other hand, is a victim of circumstances plagued by bad days that have driven him crazy because cowardice is no way out. An escape route full of gas and overcoming. Probably, you can't say it exactly. A shame, as you have to confess because so much is happening in Gotham that not everything can be grasped. Especially when you have to do your own tasks. You only find out about someone when their death completes a new assignment. The rest is meaningless.

“By the way, the maid is very intelligent. She understood her position pretty fast.” Jervis pulls you out of your thoughts, talks about something other than the plan they have. They are all so different and yet madness goes hand in hand with each of them.  
“Where do you hid the ones who owned this house?” You catch your voice and hope for a better answer than Jerome has given you before. Death certainly got its victims, but the question is whether they put the bodies on the show or simply pushed them away. Tetch sees this thirst for knowledge in your eyes, reacts with a warm smile, leans over, lets you hold your breath for a second. Brown eyes, light picaro, a sharp depth that goes down without limits. It pulls you away, attracts you. His gaze is on the hunt, reaching the silent screaming cells in the body of his counterpart. Over and over again, as you already know it from him. Fear is somewhere in between because nobody knows when he is planning to hypnotize someone and compress the real thing. A part of you wants a taste of what he can give. The rest wants to escape, along with things you can't otherwise experience.  
“Good question. Maybe they found a place somewhere between rats, dirt and mockery.”  
“Why do I even ask...”  
“Mister Crane here tries a new gas at the moment. Some deserve the madness in their nightmares. Right?” Jervis' smug voice gnaws at every existing mind. He is the one who leads people into a world that doesn't exist and you are not sure whether security in his field of vision is really a word of possibility. At the same time, there is something in this atmosphere that clearly states that you belong to Jerome and that nobody will interfere as long as no one requests it. Valeska is the head of this small gathering and his moronism is the law.  
“Do you plan to push the whole town into the abyss with that gas?” With your mouth twisted, you relax as much as possible. Weakness in this place is just a ticket to the catches of death in every sense.  
“Just a little bit. We can do so much more than that.”  
“I like that way of thinking. Ideas?” Jerome intervenes, bends to Tetch, ignores the rest of everything because he has a lot more space in his repertoire.  
“One step after the other. Hallucinations are funny as well. We all work with this. Mister Crane has gas. I have hypnosis. You have your madness. The woman has her sense of work. All of these are hallucinations.  
“So you just want to get some special people?” Leaning your head askew is all that is left, besides looking for answers on the face of your counterpart. “And then what? There is no way that you guys plan for a simple show. That would be somewhat...boring.”  
“She's smart.” Deeply growling, Jerome leans against the back of the chair, looks in your direction as if you were a puppy who is not as smart as they say. He pushes the lower lip forward, thoughtful, maybe frustrated. “First we entertain some special individuals. And then the chain reaction follows. Where is the fun when everybody is invited to the first show?”  
“So you give out special invitations to your favourite guests.”  
“Clever girl.”  
“So how will you next invitation look like?”  
A subliminal laugh escapes his throat, thundering like a storm and at the same time sounds playful like the happy giggle of a child. “I thought you will never ask.”  
“Well, I did. Tell me, if it's so important to you.”  
“The strongest hallucination in form of a little drug. Our visitor will be here soon and then we are going to play a game.”  
“Sounds...exhausting.”  
“Madness is never exhausting. That is something someone sane would say,” he whispers, letting the voice slide up and down like a scale of strange melodies.  
“Really?”  
“Of course. And because you messed up the first time you going to watch it!”  
“No way!” You look at him in disgust, don't know if he really thought about it or if he doesn't care about the result as long as it's a surprise. He doesn't seem to be afraid of you cheating on him and everything else gives the impression that there is trust in these ranks like sand by the sea. It's lovely, flatters you, although killing is the point of everything. Therefore, the questioning seems like the only logical thing at this table full of intellectual deserts. “Why?”  
“Because we are a team, you and me. I need to trust my poison, Venom.” His smile tries to look lovely, fails because it is so scarred. At the same time, it leaves a tingling sensation on the skin, making this session an experience that is both stimulating and exciting. So it's okay, leaves a nod with everyone present.

“I-I now serve the dinner.” A voice is noticeable behind the ideas and twisted views, trembling fearfully so that a look over the shoulder leads to the back. The maid has found a place in the door and pushes the lunch cart ahead of her. Her clothes are filthy, bloody, reflecting everything that must have happened when one of these men jumped through the front door. It is also clear that some people died in this place. Probably a horror scenario that she was allowed to watch, constantly asking that she be spared.  
“Oh, the food is finally ready!” Tetch doesn't notice the woman's trembling body, waves her over, maintains the smile that seems to distinguish him in this round.  
“Sir... I-I wanted to say tha-that someone arrived here a moment ago.”  
“Finally!” Jerome is the first to get up enthusiastically, raise his hands up and briefly enjoy the win. Then he sits down again as if nothing has happened. “Bring him in.”  
“R-Right away!” She turns on her heel, leaves the food on the trolley. It stands abandoned in the middle of the path, which is why you raise yourself, push aside any meaningfulness and fit into the overall picture. A short stroll to the food, examining looks in your back from the others. Tension spreads, eats up the walls and poisons the joy that is still present but with caution. Something you don't like. Neither the silence that squeezes between the walls nor the daggers in everyone's eyes. As a result, the next action is quite simple, the plates and cutlery glide into your hands. Clean polished, reflective. A moment of contemplation before you turn to the others and simply put the dishes on the table. Meat, vegetables, dark sauce. The smell of wine sticks in the nose, lets the next handle wander to the glasses and cups, then to the bottle and the cute decorated porcelain jug. Everything finds its place, at a moderate pace, confident and understanding that every resistance ensures that Jerome always escapes you.  
“How nice,” purrs Jervis, tears you out of clear considerations, immediately takes a cup and reaches for the jug. He pours out meticulously accurate since it seems to be a special ceremony for him. There are quiet seconds that reflect almost normality in madness until steps drive peace back into its rags. Fast, noticeably nervous, reminiscent of your heartbeat, which cannot understand the external security internally. You push it away, wait and see how they get closer. Ten seconds until a stranger is in the frame. The maid and the dealer. Three seconds until one of them clears his throat in fear.  
“Mister Valeska?” A nasal voice sneaks through the room, seems to match its thick appearance and at the same time provoke amusement in its ranks. Jervis grins cautiously, Jerome giggles. You just stop, put your hands on your hips. Your eyes glide to Valeska, who slowly rises, exchanges his joy with madness and threatens like a big cat, delicate and hungry, his victim in sight. He looks serious, intimidates his guests for breaths that last forever before discarding the image and turning once in a circle, relieved by the fun that awaits him. Stretching his arms out, he gives the impression that he is waiting for a hug. A touch to hold what wants to escape. Claws of Death.  
“Welcome! Where is the doctor?”  
“He couldn't come. But I have what you ordered. Look,” the stranger reaches into his jacket, shoves his thick fingers into a small sewn-in pocket, “I have everything here.”  
What he pulls out is a small packet, transparent, filled with small pills. Pink. Star-shaped. Strong. That is what Jerome wants. At the same time, it is something that smiles at you because it looks like sheer pleasure and a way to win.  
It's entertainment. For each of you.


End file.
